


Boys Don't Cry

by Couldthisbelove94



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Angst, Band Fic, Coming Out, DILF Cloud Strife, Depression, Fatherhood, First Love, Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M, Moving On, Physical Abuse, Rock and Roll, Rough Sex, Second Chances, Self-Discovery, Slow Burn, Songwriting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:48:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 40,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29236314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Couldthisbelove94/pseuds/Couldthisbelove94
Summary: The time has come. Riku is finally going to tell Sora that he loves him, and has done so for years... there's just a few eensy-weensy, teeny-tiny problems that need fixing first. One: that Sora's goldfish level attention span is making it very hard for Riku to confess his love. Two: that Sora's sexy new neighbor who happens to be in a band is making it infinitely harder for Sora to prioritize. Three: that Riku's anxiety, due to a multitude of environmental factors, is reaching fever pitch. Four: that Riku may very well be jobless, schooless, and homeless in the terrifyingly near future, and Five: that Sora's fiendish half brother, he-who-must-not-be-named (Vanitas) is making a presidential run for most-hated in Riku's broken heart.Where's a poor, closeted boy to turn? And to whom? As long as it's anyone but Vanitas, Riku will make it through. But when worse comes to worst... will he even have a choice?
Relationships: Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Riku/Vanitas (Kingdom Hearts), Roxas/Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Vanitas/Ventus (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 7





	1. Blue Monday

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for any mistakes. I wrote this on my phone and edited it five minutes before plopping into bed, so it is slapdash. Say hello to awkward fluff ball Riku, grungy garage rocker Roxas, Sora who knows what he wants (most of the time), snarky pothead with heart of gold Vanitas, a unique (for lack of a better word) future chapters rendition of Mickey Mouse, and lots of angst and tears.

The tick-tick-tikatikatikatika-tick-tick kicked right into that iconic baseline just as Riku turned off the shower water. The synth organ swooped in as Riku toweled off, and then, as he wiped down the mirror, the lyrics began.

"How does it feel? He warbled in an operatic tenor. To treat me like you do?"

He cut the accompaniment to carry through his face regimen, pinning back his soaking silver locks and taking a tub of exfoliating peels from his mother's toiletry bag. He swiped one around his face and another around his adam's apple and chest, where a few pores had clogged to an angry red. Thank god no spots had formed on his face. Resisting popping the ones he did have, he spritzed himself with toner, patted on moisturizer, and put a touch of mousse through his normally limp hair. He wanted to look good this morning. He had to make a good impression.

He was in the middle of brushing his teeth when the song changed, perking him up and making him hop up and down on his feet.

"Cause boys... don't... cry," he sang, head banging with arms rigidly by his sides despite the fact that he was still utterly naked. Only the sharp knock on the bathroom door knocked him out of his punk induced stupor.

"Riku!" His mother shouted in. "I'm going to work now! Sora's outside your window." 

"Sora?" Riku's heart leapt at the name's sound. He wrapped a towel around his waist and bounded from the bathroom as fast as possible, ignoring when his mother cried out in vexation at the state of the shower. He shut his bedroom door firm before she could come in, smirking as she scowled and stomped off. The front door shot open seconds later. There was a yelp. Then a fond chuckle.

"Hi, Sora, what brings you here so early?"

"Nothing. Just thought I'd pick up Riku for once."

"That sounds like a very suspicious nothing." 

Sora's guilty giggle ensued, exciting Riku senseless. What was it that the brunet wanted to say?

"Don't panic, don't panic," Riku commanded, grinning in spite of himself. When he could take it no longer, he slipped on the clothes he had washed and ironed to perfection last night, examined himself in the mirror, gave a little spritz of cologne, and shot through his affirmations.

"You're smart, you're handsome, you're capable," he droned, tacking on, "you're hot and Sora wants you," for good measure. Then, huffing out a final nervous breath, he swaggered to the window and leaned out of it like he had nothing better to do. 

Sora leaned against the doorstep with his bike still in the grass beneath Riku's window. No doubt he'd left it there to approach Riku's mother.

"Sora," Riku drawled in his most unaffected tone. "What are you doing creeping around my house at this hour?"

Big, brilliant blue eyes shot towards him and eclipsed under the crinkle of honey smooth skin, the almost comical bushiness of their lashes and brows giving Sora an effortless approachability yet tragic beauty. At least, that's what his face did to Riku. It was a tad sigh-inducing, but by now Riku was an expert at holding it back.

He chuckled instead, rolling his eyes as Sora stumbled on the porch step on his way towards him. If Sora wasn't so damn good looking the clumsiness might have been annoying, but...

Riku cleared his throat and swerved when Sora tried booping his nose with his thumb.

"Hey big dumb," Sora announced with gusto.

"Hey little dumb," Riku retorted, secretly loving the game.

After a medium pitched, swelling laugh, Sora shot silent, looked over his shoulder, and leered forward in confidentiality. The break neck change in mood might have made Riku laugh if it hadn't seemed so ominous.

"I have new neighbors," Sora hissed after pause, making the silveret raise a brow. 

"You... have new neighbors?" Riku repeated deadly. 

Had this been all Sora wanted to tell him?

"Yeah!" Sora confirmed like a happily burst bubble, almost lifting off his feet as he nodded his head. "Guess what their last name is?"

"I don't know," Riku blubbered, too thrown to be dismissive.

"The Strifes," Sora returned in a oogly boogly voice, complete with hand gestures and an evil cackle. 

Riku wilted in befuddlement.

"Why was this necessary to tell me?"

"Because it's cool!" Faux-creepy gave way to nochalantly informative as Sora beckoned somewhere over his shoulder, presumably in the direction of his neighbor's house, and began.

"So I wake up at like, 3 to go to the bathroom, right? And I hear music playing but Vanitas isn't home. Then I realize it's outside my window, and I notice there's a light on, so I peek open the curtains and there's a kid in the house beside me playing a guitar."

"Wait, wait, the foreclosed house?" Riku interjected.

Sora nodded. "Guess someone finally bought it." 

"And this someone happens to play guitar by an open window at 3 am?" 

"Yeah! His name's Roxas."

Of course Sora knew the kid's name already. Riku could only guess how he found out within the few hours it took Riku to wake, complete his morning exercises, and prepare for class.

"... at first I didn't think he'd respond when I said hello, cause he had his headphones on..."

Ah. So that was how Sora found out. He casually started a conversation with a strange boy out of his bedroom window at 3 o'clock in the morning.

"His dad's name is Cloud. Wild, right? An actual man named Cloud!"

What was wild was how unbothered Sora was by all this- as if this sort of thing happened everyday- as well as his immediate urge to go along with it. 

"Why was he playing guitar so early?" Riku asked.

Sora's face brightened in immediate excitement, but before bursting into an answer, he cocked his head for Riku to follow him outside. 

Riku checked his watch and straightened, rushing for his backpack, helmet,and shoes. He slipped his lunch from the fridge and hurried through the garage for his bike. Sora was waiting in the driveway when Riku ducked through the closing garage door. The pair departed together, cycling side by side.

"He's in a band!" Sora sang, picking up where he left off. "They're putting together a studio album and he had to make some track demos for his bandmates."

"So he's the songwriter for the group?" Riku asked. Sora's resulting look told him the brunet had no idea what track demos were.

"Did you make this kid think you knew what he was talking about?" Riku snorted.

Sora only laughed.

"He sang me a couple bars. Riku, he has a voice!"

"I'm surprised he was able to prove it around you."

It took a full minute for Sora to get the joke, but when he did, his reaction was twice as big. "Oh, come on, Riku!" He groaned. "I didn't mean it like that, I meant he's talented!"

"I know what you meant, Sora," Riku sighed, but Sora was already fast into his next talking point.

"So, he invited me into his room and showed me some live recordings on his phone, and then his lyric notebooks, and then he played some of his new stuff all the way through, and then we talked about family and how he has an older brother, too, and then he made up a song for me right as the sun rose... a-and then we had breakfast at the bistro. I was kind of embarrassed because we were both totally in pajamas and unwashed but Scrooge let us in before opening and Remi cooked us some special style crepes and omelettes!"

If not for his nerves, Riku might have caught the way Sora's story mysteriously went blank from sunrise to nine am, an hour before the bistro opened for brunch. As it stood, he had been too busy being shocked at the fact that Sora had not only said hello to his neighbor five seconds after meeting him, but also crawled into his window within the hour. Sure, the distance between the houses on Sora's street were less than a leap, but Sora slept on the second floor!

"So you hopped roofs to get to this guy?" Riku balked, swerving over a pothole and onto the streetside. 

Sora followed without effort.

"Yeah, I think he was surprised when I dived in. He got off the bed and turned away, and I thought he was being rude, but I think he was just getting ready to go downstairs and let me in the back door."

"You thought HE was being rude?"

"Aw, cut it, Riku!" Sora snapped. He always got irritable when tired. It was a miracle that he was still able to form complete sentences with the rings drooping his eyes down his cheeks.

"You're not skipping school, today, are you?" Riku warned, shooting Sora a withering gaze when the boy whined. It was then that he realized Sora didn't have his backpack. 

"I was going to hang with Roxas," Sora said.

So the new kid was skipping his first day? Kingdom Hearts, what a good influence.

"His concert is tonight and I was going to watch his band practice."

Riku took his usual detour without thought, ignoring when Sora balked and asked where they were going. When he noticed the familiar turn to his house, he gasped and tried stopping the bike. 

Riku kept going, warning over his shoulder, "I bet your mom'd love to know what you're planning!"

"Riku, you snitch!" Sora squeaked, peddaling at light speed to catch up. Before long, he was throwing his bike on the grass and chasing Riku up his front porch. Riku was so excited he didn't even notice the battered black Jeep parked in the street or the two fresh cars in front of the house next door. It was only when he recognized the Cure playing loudly through Sora's ground floor window that he furrowed his brows and ground to a halt on the welcome mat.

"Wait, Vanitas is here?" He snapped.

"I guess he got here while I was at your place," Sora said in surprise, nose wrinkling at the sight of the man's black jeep.

Sora's sorry excuse for a half brother roared from somewhere within the first floor, rising in pitch from a booming tenor to a warbling soprano as he clattered pots and pans. Unfortunately, Roxas was not the only metal head in Sora's life.

"Don't start," Sora warned.

Immediately, Riku puffed up in tragic grandeur. 

"I don't start fights, I finish them," he tolled, bristling when Sora snorted.

"Isn't that line from the Aristocats?"

"..."

Riku didn't know. Was it from the Aristocats? He'd thought it was an original thought. He didn't have long to think about it before the front door opened and the smell of weed and burnt eggs zoomed towards him.

Vanitas straddled the door frame with his shoulders, resplendent in a tie dye muscle top three sizes too small in length. It must have been a woman's extra large crop top, or at least a husky child's. Had he thrifted it? He definitely hadn't bought the disgusting black harem pants clinging to his hips first hand.

"Ah, Sora and company," the man sneered, golden eyes hazed by pink. "Breakfast?"

"Just had it," Sora sang before Riku could interject, fixing his jaw but doing little else when Riku shoved past Vanitas into the house.

"Come in, I insist," Vanitas scoffed as he shut the front door and disappeared into the kitchen.

Riku didn't even grace the heathen a glance as he jumped the steps to Sora's bedroom. Vanitas' old room, now the family office, was open and Vanitas' guitar case hung inside. Judging by the editing program open on the desk top, he must have been back to record something.

"Sora, where's your backpack?" Riku asked, sneaking a peek out the bedroom window.

The window across the lawn was open, too, but the curtains had been drawn. Maybe Roxas was sleeping. So when was Sora supposed to start hanging out with him?

"Riku, stop spying," Sora whispered over his shoulder, making Riku jump and splutter.

"I'm just getting your books!"

"Like hell you are, you're trying to take a look at him! Why don't you just say hi?"

"Because he might be alseep!"

"Oh, fuck that," Sora drawled, pushing past, leaning over his windowsill, and bellowing, "ROXAS!"

His volume almost gave Riku a heart attack, but judging by the yelp and clatter across the way, it had done its job. Moments later, a head of flaxen hair slipped through the curtains followed by two angry blue eyes.

"The fuck, dude?" The mysterious Roxas croaked, voice and eyes thick with sleep. "It's 9 o fucking five, you didn't even give me twenty minutes!"

"Sorry," Sora said sheepishly, smile betraying that he wasn't sorry at all. "I just wanted you to meet my friend Riku."

"Riku?"

Roxas looked up in curiosity.

When Riku caught his eye, he was greeted by the second most beautiful face he had ever seen.

Startling cerulean eyes stared from thick brown lashes and brows just like Sora's, but there was a sharpness to them that Sora did not have. Roxas' nose was perfect, his skin was bronzed, cheeks were pink, and lips were full. Yet still, the sharpness translated, making his feminine features distinctly male and distinctly becoming. Traditionally, more people would be attracted to him than Sora, but none of that concerned Riku. Sora's type was his main concern, and as long as the boy still pined for winter tones, Roxas was moot. Still, it did little to quench the envy bubbling in Riku's chest.

"Hey," Riku greeted, deepening his voice to a burly drawl.

"Hey," Roxas retorted. The squint of his eyes was quizzical and not altogether warm. 

Riku wondered what was on his mind. 

"You Sora's boyfriend?" Roxas intoned, looking towards Sora with arched brow.

Hopefully within the day! Riku thought to himself, whipping to Sora for a sign of hope. Had Sora told Roxas that he considered Riku more than just a friend? 

"He's not my boyfriend, silly goose!" Sora squeaked, smile doing little to hide his embarrassment. "I told you, we're best friends!"

So much for that dose of hope Riku wanted.

Instantaneously, Roxas' brows smoothed. "I got the wrong impression, then," he smirked. "Does Riku want to hang out, too?"

Riku got the impression that Roxas could see right through him. Though an impossible supposition, it still made him itch. To make matters worse, the smell of hash burst around his silver hair, followed by breath that smelled of cinnamon and chocolate.

"Who are we chatting with?" Vanitas' voice wafted soon after, making Riku twist around in vexation.

If there was one thing Riku despised more than life itself, it was Sora's half brother. Why, he couldn't place, but the man gave him hives. He wasn't particularly evil, just supremely irritating and by Sora's stories, bad tempered since boyhood. 

"Mind your own business!" Sora barked, but Roxas asked who Vanitas was before Sora could herd him out. 

"I am Sora's beloved half brother," Vanitas greeted, propping himself upside down over the windowsill, leaning with his body parallel to the ground, and extending a hand.

Sora wasn't the only impulsive one in the family. Riku could see Vanitas' disgusting nipple ring the more the man stretched. 

"Your pits stink," Sora whispered, withering when Vanitas glared him down. Or, up, taking into account his positioning over the windowsill. The ravenet jumped when he felt Roxas' fingertips.

Miraculously, Roxas also had a nipple piercing, albeit a drop emerald instead of a gold chain link. It was visible because he was shirtless. To Riku's surprise, the boy was quite fit, with surprisingly big hands and forearms. When, despite Sora's humiliated protests, Vanitas lifted his own top off and tweaked his nipples in solidarity, Roxas broke into a brilliant white grin and tweaked his, too.

"Remembrance of a past boyfriend," he said, nodding to Vanitas and pointing. "Yours?"

"Metaphor for the shackles of life," Vanitas shot back, reneging quickly to admit, "nah, I just felt like it one night. Impulsivity runs in the family."

Roxas' face twisted in confusion. "Huh." He said. "I didn't see any on Sora-"

"Okay, time for school," Sora croaked, fire engine red as he grabbed Riku's hand. 

Vanitas continued leaning out his bedroom window, more curious by the second. As he watched, he pointed, accusing rather than obersving, "You're familiar. You have a cousin I know or something?"

"Um, none close enough to give a shit about," Roxas quipped in return.

"Last name?"

"Strife?"

Like molten iron to sand, Vanitas' color left him. "Right," he muttered with pursed lips and averted gaze. "Not as high as I thought I was." Slowly, he shimmied back in the window and disappeared without a goodbye. It was only then that Roxas spotted Riku and Sora descending the front porch. 

"Wait!" He bellowed, receding behind his curtains and reappearing on his lawn before Riku and Sora could cycle away. 

"Sora, you're late!" Riku growled, but Sora stopped anyway, eyes glued to Roxas' naked upper body. 

The blond wore little else than linen draw string shorts, cotton socks, and plastic, dollar store sandals (Riku hoped he had on underwear, too, but the conspicuous outline on the boy's left upper thigh boded otherwise), but he moved fast despite, grabbing Sora's handlebars before Riku could wrench them along. "You coming to my concert tonight?" he breathed, cheeks pink from the exertion of keeping his errant dick in place as he ran. 

"Hell, yeah," Sora gusted in return, cheeks pinker. 

Roxas winked and patted his hands, flashing another impossible smile. "Righto. See you then. I'll sing your song if you show up."

Sora nearly melted, scrunching his face in delight as a bright glow overtook him. "I will!" He balked. Then, stuck for what else to say, he whizzed ahead on his bike, leaving Riku in the dust.

"Wait, Sora!" Riku cried, more confused than ever. 

Had Roxas just flirted with his best friend, or was that just negativity creeping in?

"See you around, Riku," Roxas winked, sending a sportsman's grin Riku's way and a sharp salute. When he turned with hand in pocket, the lining running through the middle of his shorts accentuated the crack between his pert ass cheeks. 

Right. Definitely no underwear. Dude was probably clutching his dick through his shorts as well. 

"No negativity," Riku commanded himself, trying not to hate the bohemian swagger to Roxas' hips, or the way the nipple drop clinked as Roxas raised his hand to wave goodbye. 

As Riku rode off, he clutched at his chest on the pretense of tugging the suave turtleneck and denim jacket he'd bought over the weekend closer to his chin. Were nipple piercings the in thing right now? Just thinking of someone sticking a needle in his arm made Riku nauseous, let alone wheedling one through the entirety of the nubs on his pectorals. They were sensitive enough as it was. Did piercings make that worse? What about when the metal got cold? 

"Stop thinking," Riku commanded, narrowly missing the pothole he had cleanly dodged on the way over. He had no idea where Sora was, let alone whether he was even at the high school. Usually Riku made sure he got there okay before cycling for the train station. Now, he had no time.

The real question was how Roxas knew whether Sora had nipple piercings or not. Just as Riku entertained worrying the worst case scenario, the answer came to him.

Sora slept topless! Riku was one of those people who needed to be bundled in flannel no matter what the season, but Sora was a total flower child. As younglings, whenever they were not at the beach together, he was running naked through his backyard while Riku tagged along in a full sweater and cargo pants. That was one of the many wonderful dichotomies between them, and that also must have been why Roxas saw him topless in the first place. It was also a good defense for why, in Riku's mind, Sora and Roxas could only get along as brothers. Too alike. 

Riku was swiping his train card when he realized he had forgotten to ask Sora out, and he was midway through his journey to the community college when he realized he wouldn't be able to ask Sora out at all until late in the evening. He'd wanted to reserve a spot at the bistro and treat him to a first date, but now there was no point. Oh, well. Hopefully food would be served wherever Roxas was performing. If the blond was playing a song special for Sora, Riku would have to make sure he looked so good Sora wouldn't be able to keep his eyes away.

"You're smart, you're handsome, you're capable, you're hot and Sora wants you," Riku repeated the entire way to school, sweating bullets in his ridiculous getup the whole ride. His first good impression had been halted in its tracks this morning, but if he kept positive, he was sure to succeed in the evening.

Surely the new kid wouldn't mind if Riku tagged along.


	2. Rock the Casbah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I didn't expect such a quick reaction to my last chapter, so immense thanks for the comments and kudos. Here's where Mickey comes into play, followed by the first part of Riku's Radiant Garden concert excursion. What could possibly go wrong along the way, you might ask? Welcome to the slippery slope of narratively torturing the poor main character for the reader and writer's pleasure. Angst, denial, and mixed feelings ensue.

"Guess who's coming to dinner!" Riku sang with arms outstretched and voice booming through the entire old folks' home undaunted. He was partly happy because he'd gotten out of his community college's last international honor society meeting of the week early. The rest of his joy came from the extra time it afforded him to visit his dear friend.

When a familiar, patchy head with big flaps for ears whipped around and screeched in delight, Riku zig zagged between the common room tables and chairs towards it, forgetting for a moment that he was a grown adult and instead bursting with a goofy grin that would put Sora to shame. Then came the hug: big, relentless, and brimming with warmth.

"What brings you down this patch of the woods, son?" A tragically squeaky voice managed over Riku's shoulder, followed by the gaze of two blinking, watery black eyes.

Riku clutched the handles of the wheelchair the man sat in and winked. "I'm here to spend time with my favorite monarch!"

For a moment, cloudiness captured the man's gaze. Then, his skin smoothed and he gave a bashful wave of his gloved hand. 

Riku got the man's care bag from the nurses and attached it to the back of his chair, standing up on the wheel bar and pushing off as he would a shopping cart as a kid. They skated like that until they reached the patio and gardens, where Riku pushed across several feet of gravel until they reached a set of cast iron, florid table and chairs. Then, he hoisted the old man out of his seat and into a garden chair, sat himself down, and presented a special box marked Twilight Bistro. When the old man blinked at it in confusion, Riku beckoned for him to open it. When he did, he clapped his gloved hands in delight. 

Cakes. Shaped like rodents and topped with crowns. One girl and one boy. The old man loved it so much he hesitated on which one to bite into. In the end, he closed his eyes and let Riku do the cutting.

"Had it catered special," Riku beamed. Despite the first half of his day being a total crash and burn, he was starting the second half right. Hopefully Mickey's satisfaction would ensure good luck in Riku's future endeavors. 

"Very thoughtful," the old man chirped as he munched, cake fluff falling down his chin into his shirt.

Riku wiped up the best he could. When they were finished eating, they both sat back in contentment, watching the sun set behind the pines as a nurse offered them afternoon tea. It was nothing but Lipton and Riku was a tea snob, but he smiled and drank it anyway for his friend's sake. 

"How's your skin, Mickey?" He asked, watching the old man's gloves as they moved over each other, intent on scratching.

Mickey was an oasis of complexes and health conditions including but not limited to muscle degeneration, contact dermatitis, vitiligo, and alopecia. He also exhibited rousing episodes of grandeur in which he acted as though he were an actual king, or Mickey Mouse, depending on his mood. It was unconfirmed whether the episodes were a deliberate ploy to shake things up or because a small part of him actually believed he was someone else. He had been stuck in the old folk's home since the age of forty two, when his parents became too feeble to care for him on their own. Still, he managed to keep positive. Riku had been visiting him since late high school, and what had started as a reluctant community service project became a deep friendship. Riku didn't know what to classify it as, now, but Mickey gave him a peace of mind that no one else could, perhaps because Mickey had no chips in the game of societal pretensions. Not that that stopped him from trying.

"I'll be out of here soon," he sighed for the umpteenth time that week, half to himself and half to the world. 

Riku bit back a chuckle and nodded instead, furrowing his brows in concern when Mickey let out a low growl. 

"What is it?" Riku asked, swiveling in the direction of Mickey's glare.

The source of his disgust revealed itself in the form of Frau Helga, an elderly german lady who had been rolled onto the patio in a wheel chair and blanket for some sunshine. Her pet cat slept in her lap. 

Mickey shook his head when he caught her eye. "Die katzen," he growled, ducking a little when Frau's cat yawned.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"The enemy!"

Riku was just about to ask what Mickey meant by "the enemy" when he saw the comic book peeking from Mickey's pocket and put two and two together.

"Maus," Riku sighed, pursing his lips as Mickey whipped the book out and turned a couple pages. Hand scribbled cats in SS uniforms stared from the comic panels, daunting to Mickey even in black and white.

"One of the nurses let me borrow it," he explained. "She's reading it for school. I had completely forgotten the history of my kind till I looked inside. Shameful, the way the cats treated us. I bet Pete had a part in it."

So today he was a european, WWII era Mickey Mouse. Fair enough.

"If I can ever get back to my castle, I'll have to at least demand a formal apology."

Okay, so today he was a king and a european, WWII era Mickey Mouse. He also believed Maus was a literal translation instead of historical metaphor. Which delusions would Riku allow him to keep today?

"Mickey," he said lightly, wetting his lips in deliberation, "you do know that Maus is anthropomorphic fiction, right? The mice represent the Jews during WWII and the cats represent the Germans."

"But I'm not Jewish!" Mickey insisted rather loudly, making Riku cringe in embarassment. 

"Exactly. And Mickey Mouse was never in WWII!"

"Donald Duck did factory work!" Mickey cried. "What makes you think I didn't put up a fight, too?"

"Forget it, Mickey, all I'm saying is that neither Frau nor her cat are Nazis."

"Like hell, I'll forget it! For all I know, that's exactly why Frau and her katzen are here, to steal my memory! To make me forget!"

Oh boy...

"Just remember, Riku, they got the homosexuals, too. You are not exempt!"

Riku decided he would get nowhere fast with this kind of talk, so instead, he changed the subject.

"How's your penpal Minnie?"

Mickey had chosen her solely for her name. Any other resemblance to Minnie Mouse was nonexistent (in fact, she resembled Pete more than anything) but when Riku pulled up her picture on google and asked if Mickey was sure about writing to her, Mickey declared her beauty and would not take no for an answer. His letters were painstaking enterprises, filled with florrid but nigh illegible ballads of love as well as doodles he comissioned to Riku, who could not draw for shit. Even so, Minnie wrote back every time, somehow understanding everything Mickey said.

"I'm visiting her soon!" Mickey chirped, turning a bashful pink. "The physical therapist says if I put my tuchus to it and eat lots of protein, I'll build the strength to live on my own in Disney!"

That threw Riku for a loop. Though it wasn't the first time Mickey had talked about escaping to Disney, it was the first time that he'd implicated his physical therapist in his plans.

"I signed the paperwork for my new apartment and everything! When I get approved, I'll move in with a gaggle of roommates just like me and finally start my life!"

Upon hearing that, Riku shot into the stratosphere. An apartment and roommates? Mickey really was acting cuckoo today. Despite his doubts, Riku continued listening, gaining solace in the way Mickey lit up when he imagined living the remainder of his life independently.

"And Minnie and I will be able to finally go on that date we've been talking about..."

If only Riku could manage to ask Sora out. If Roxas' presence in Sora's life became a trend, he might not be able to find the time.

"How is your lover?" Mickey squawked over his thoughts, making Riku furrow his brows. 

"My what now?" He blubbered.

"Sora!"

"Sora's my best friend, Mickey, not my lover. I don't know where you got that from."

"Aw, shucks, Riku! Your love is as plain as the blush on your cheeks!"

"Mickey!" Riku gasped, feeling his heart skip even though his head knew nobody else was around. Frau Helga eyed him in distaste from the patio, but other than that no one was even glancing their way.

"It's okay to be in love, Riku!" Mickey insisted with a fond smile. "I can barely stand to be away from Minnie! If only I could reach out and touch her... but you? You're around the person you love every day and have been for years! Riku, it's a travesty that you still haven't confessed!"

"Mickey, I'll do it in my own time!" Riku hissed.

In return Mickey shrugged in resignation. "It's your life, Riku. I'm just helping you avoid all the pitfalls I didn't."

Riku narrowly avoided rolling his eyes as Mickey went into a long diatribe of how he and Minnie first met and how he got the courage to keep writing to her, despite the fact that Riku had been there for the entire courtship. Riku tried to look attentive, but in his mind he was considering Mickey's reaction to Roxas coming on the scene. The old man would probably treat the new development as a catastrophe. Better for Riku to just leave it be. 

Another hour passed before Frau Helga was wheeled in and the cafeteria manager came out to ask Mickey what he wanted for dinner. As the manager leaned at Mickey's side, Riku stood and said that he would be leaving.

"Gotta go to a concert with Sora tonight," he whispered over the cafeteria manager's shoulder.

Mickey's eyes bugged to twice their size. "Oh, Riku! Ask him tonight! Waste not another minute!"

"Don't you worry, Mickey," Riku retorted, feeling more confident than usual. 

When the cafeteria manager left, Riku tried hoisting Mickey back into his wheelchair. Instead of sitting, to Riku's utter surprise, the old man waved the chair off and used Riku's shoulder as a cane to walk himself. Though he sweat profusely the entire way to the back porch, he never faltered. It was a little eerie, but Riku had never seen him so agile.

"Good luck, my boy!" Mickey said once inside the common room. "Stay positive!"

Riku made sure Mickey was tucked into his dinner before waving goodbye and collecting his schoolbag and phone from the receptionist. The screen read seven thirty five and despite Sora promising Riku during lunch that he'd text him the address of Roxas' venue once class got out, Riku had recieved nothing except five messages from honor society asking for treasury information for their quarterly project.

"Fuck, Sora," Riku whispered in dejection, stomach twisting. How could he get there on time if he didn't know how far away the venue was? Sora had escaped Twilight High at least two hours ago. There was no excuse for this lack of communication.

"How was your chat with Mickey?" The receptionist asked, making Riku jolt from his phone and give a sheepish shrug.

"Ah. Same old. Except for the fact that he thinks he's moving to Disney City."

"Oh? But he's on the wait list!"

Time stopped as Riku glanced up. 

"He's on what?"

"Didn't he tell you? At the beginning of the month he applied for a spot at Disney's Independent Living Center! Apparently it's the same one where his penpal Minnie lives."

"No. He didn't say all that."

"Well, we're really proud of him! His next exam is coming up and we think he'll pass the physical with flying colors. We've just got to keep his confidence up for his psych eval."

A gulp forced its way up Riku's throat despite his sportsmanly beam. 

So Mickey had actually told him the truth. If things went according to plan, the old man might be gone within the month. Who would Riku visit whenever Sora slept in on the weekends or had to go to afterschool tutoring? Who would he tell all his private woes to? Who could he possibly be so wholly himself with if not his favorite monarch? Lonesomeness tugged down his smile and made him avert his gaze, mumbling a small goodbye to the receptionist along with his hope that Mickey did well.

"Thank Kingdom Hearts for you, Riku!" The receptionist called as Riku left, perhaps worrying over the abruptness of the boy's exit. "Mickey's lucky he has such a supportive friend."

"I wish I could be supportive in my heart," Riku swallowed, hurrying from the home to the bike rack outside and pedaling back to the train. As he sat on the sunset line clutching his handlebars to his stomach, anger and fear came over him, which he assumed was wholly due to Mickey. He should have warned Riku that he was leaving sooner! When would Riku find time to mentally prepare for his departure? Heck, even buy him a proper gift? How could he possibly visit him in Disney? 

Despite the curfuffle these thoughts inspired in Riku's psych, Riku found, with much guilt, that the deepest source of his vexation remained the fact that Sora had still not texted him Roxas' concert venue, which lead him to wonder what had distracted the brunet so. Possible answers to that wonder were endless, and none of them encouraging.

"Sora, hurry up!" Riku hissed, scowling as he got off at his stop. Blustering his bike up the train station steps as loudly as possible, he whooshed off and glared his way to Sora's house, not even bothering to stop by his own to shower or make himself presentable. The sun was setting and it was now half past eight. For all Riku knew, the concert might have started already.

Pitching his bike on its side in Sora's garden, he stomped up the front porch and rapped his fist against the door, trying to block out Vanitas' loud singing inside. Why was the weasel still lurking around? Usually he would have slunk back to his apartment across town by now. Maybe he'd stuck around especially to bother Riku in his hour of darkness.

"Fuck!" Riku snarled as he rapped against the door again. 

Inside, Vanitas' warble rose to grating falsetto. Then came the sound of guitar strings and a thrumming bass. Was Vanitas' band harmonizing in the middle of the dining room or something?

Furious, Riku stomped around the side of the house and peeked in every available window starting with the kitchen. When he got to the house's rear left on the level below where Sora slept, and where the music was loudest, he put his face to the window and tried peering through the partially closed curtain. If he squinted, he could make out movement. When light shone against the curtain fabric from an opening interior door, Riku banged on the pane as loudly as he could.

All sound cut off in sync, making Riku realize that Vanitas had been singing along to a recording rather than live instruments. When Riku listened closer, he heard creaking. Then the music began again and he groaned. As he continued rapping the pane and bellowing through the closed curtain, he failed to notice the front door wrenching open and Vanitas stomping around the side of the house with a baseball bat in hand. It was only after Riku had given up, letting his arms fall limp at his sides and his trembling chin thud against the windowsill, that he registered movement out of the corner of his gaze. When he looked around with big, watering eyes, he bit back a curse.

Vanitas leaned against the bat as if it were a cane, smirking with his head cocked back and to the side. He had long realized that the person banging against his home studio window was not a burglar but a lovesick college kid and it showed on his face.

"Riku, Riku, Riku," he sneered. "What brings you here so late? And so frazzled?"

Riku bored his lazer like gaze into Vanitas' skull in the hopes he would drop dead as he shoved past.

To Riku's dismay, it just encouraged the weasel to follow him through the house smiling while Riku called Sora's name.

"He's not here," Vanitas interjected after Riku's voice began turning hysterical. "He's hanging out with the new neighbor."

"Roxas?" Riku gasped, broken.

Any expression evacuated Vanitas' face when he caught Riku's eye. "I guess," he shrugged with shaken head. "My mom texted me to keep an eye out for when he gets home. I'm babysitting while she visits family."

It might have been polite to ask how long she would be away, but Riku was far too distraught to care about manners. Instead, he stomped into the front hall, hopped the stairs two at a time, and plowed through Sora's room, digging up anything that might tell him where the boy was. He could feel Vanitas watching over his shoulder.

"Isn't going through others' personal items considered rude?" The ravenet sneered, fiddling with Sora's door knob as he leaned against the frame. When the doorknob ceased to interest him he went for his nipple ring, tugging the chain outward and rolling it up and down through the generous arm hole of his cut up, tie dye muscle top.

The repetitive motion made Riku want to pop the piercing right out of the goon's chest.

"Sora. Is. My. Best. Friend!" He snapped as he dug around, realizing Sora's schoolbag was nowhere to be found, which meant that Sora had not stopped by the house since last he saw Riku, which meant either something catastrophic happened or Sora decided to go straight to Roxas from school without texting Riku at all.

Catastrophe was the only logical option. The impulsive brunet had finally met his end.

Moaning, Riku fumbled for his phone and dialed Sora's number, cursing when it went to the answering machine and biting his nails as he waited for the message to beep. All the while, a strange droning resounded in his right ear, the one pointed towards Sora's doorway. When Riku realized it was Vanitas speaking to him, he looked up in such consternation that his weasel companion was rendered speechless. "Well?" Riku spat after what he thought was ample pause. "Are you going to talk or not?"

"Excuse me?" Vanitas scoffed in surprise. Riku had never been so vocally uncouth.

"You're excused," Riku shot back, hearing the beep on his phone and dodging as Vanitas strolled past him, cowering as if injected with acid when the man's harem panted leg touched his shoulder. "Hello, Sora?" He screeched into his receiver, ignoring Vanitas' almost audible eye roll. 

The ravenet had gone to peer at something out Sora's window. Not that his stupid whims interested Riku whatsoever, especially at a time like this.

"I just want to know where you are. You never texted me where you were going after school and I've been waiting on a call from you for awhile-"

"Kingdom Hearts, you're so needy."

"-so please dear Hearts pick up your phone Sora," Riku continued in rising pitch, adding at the end in an impassioned warble, "you know, sometimes, there are people out there who really care about you and it's good to give the courtesy of caring back."

Vanitas made a grand performance of trying not to cringe. 

There were several silent moments as Riku waited for the receiver beep telling him his message had been taken. When instead an automated voice returned to tell him that Sora's message box was almost full and Riku's message was thus too long to send, the silveret thundered, "Hearts dammit!" and chucked his phone through the bedroom door.

By this point, Vanitas had moved from amused to vexed, clutching his crossed arms and wrinkling his nose as he watched Riku crawl around the bedroom like an animal some more. When he could take it no longer, he stood before Riku's face with legs apart and leaned towards him, blocking his path and securing Sora's belongings with his foot whenever Riku tried moving or picking anything up. He stood like that until the silveret met his eye.

"Riku, he intoned," making sure it landed. "I already told you he's with Roxas. If you'd like to avoid an ulcer, you might start listening."

"If you're so sure he's with Roxas," Riku sneered, "then why hasn't he texted me yet?"

"I don't know," Vanitas scoffed. "Maybe because you're not the most important thing in his life and he doesn't have to be at your beck and call?"

That hurt, mostly for irony's sake. If happenstance dicated that Riku be bleeding out while Sora cried for help from a thousand mile distance, somehow Riku would drag himself to the boy's rescue. Or at least make a good effort at it. To know that that devotion was not remotely reciprocated was crushing. "Funny time to start caring about Sora's sense of purpose," he drawled in as controlled a voice as he could muster. "I don't remember you being around long enough to psychoanalyze him as a kid. For a brother, you were real absent."

"If I were absent I wouldn't have been able to bully him as much as he complains I did," Vanitas chirped back, quirking his brow when Riku scowled. "What?" He asked in faux innocence. "Didn't he tell you all about me? I can't imagine you treating someone like you treat me unless you think you have them all figured out."

This time, the irony was delicious. How fitting it was to hear Vanitas drone about Riku's prejudice when the ravenet had no clue how Riku actually felt. It wasn't that Riku bore some childhood grudge against Vanitas on Sora's behalf (although that was perhaps how the resentment started). It was just that Vanitas to his deepest cellular level really fucking irritated Riku. "How Freudian an observation," Riku sneered, shoving past Vanitas to peer over the windowsill to see if there was a ripped piece of fabric or something denoting a violent escape. Come to think of it, maybe Vanitas had been peering in Roxas' window across the way to see if Sora was there. 

"No, Freudian would be if I hypothesized that your hatred of me is really you wanting to fuck me. Or maybe I represent the dark animalistic desire you harbor towards Sora-"

"-unbelievable-"

"- who you're supposed to have this beautiful, platonic childhood romance with. That discrepancy between your childhood desire for male affection and your deepest sexual depravities shames you so you treat me like shit and put Sora on a pedestal to delude yourself into thinking the problem is outside of you. Oh, and it would have something to do with your dad. That would be Freudian."

That changed Riku's mind. It was not just that he was irritated by Vanitas on a cellular level. It was that he despised and wished to murder Vanitas on a cellular level. Preferrably with some new kind of nuclear energy that broke cells down one by one from left to right and up to down. Vanitas' hand would desintegrate, then his arm, then his left nipple until all that was left was his disgusting piercing, and so on and so forth until the last of him was ugly black slop. Riku could market him as weed killer.

"I'd appreciate if you didn't talk about mine or your brother's sexuality around me," Riku pontificated, piercing his aquamarine gaze into Vanitas' heavy lidded gold. "Maybe that's the kind of rapport you and your friends have, but I want no part in it. It creeps me out."

"My apologies, Vanitas shrugged," smirk gone. "I thought we were having an adult conversation here. Guess I was wrong."

"It's only an adult conversation if both parties act like adults, Vanitas. Just because you have a band and pretend you patented muscle tops doesn't mean you're not over the age of twenty one. In fact it accentuates it, and not in a good way."

"Kingdom Hearts," Vanitas cursed through bug eyes and surprised laughter. "You really are on a bender tonight, Riku. I had no idea you were so aggressive."

Riku had been having fun shooting insults Vanitas' way, but a part of him did feel like he'd gone too far with his last quip. Instead of apologizing, he rushed from Sora's room and down the stairs, wondering what he would do next. When he called Sora's cell again, the brunet remained unreachable.

"Shit!" He mewled, cradling his head in his hands as Vanitas disappeared out the front door with a slam. Riku didn't see the weasel enter his car, but he was sure to hear the Jeep's fleeing roar any second. Despite the way his muscles relaxed the moment the house fell silent, he regretted driving Vanitas out. For all Riku's wolfishness, he hated being alone. As the gravity of the word "alone" impressed upon him, he plopped back in Sora's living room armchair and looked around in melancholy.

Was this to be his evening? Sitting around at Sora's house waiting for the boy to come home so he could ask where he was? Riku had feared the "friend zone" many times, but this sort of behavior was putting him closer to "parent zone," which sounded so responsibly platonic it made Riku sick.

Just when he really began to slump over his seat, the front door slammed open and Vanitas strolled in as if he'd never left in the first place. His contented whistling left Riku aghast. 

When Vanitas caught Riku's expression, he stifled a smirk and indicated towards the door with a cock of his head. "Car," he blurted out, expanding as he trudged up the stairs, "concert's near 7th Heaven in Radiant Garden. Roxas' band comes on at 10. Takes an hour to get there."

"How did you..." Riku started, shutting his mouth and springing up when he noticed the time on his phone. "I have an hour and a half," he said brokenly.

He'd never make it. Even if he ran for the Express Rail, there was no telling when it would come or where it would drop him off. The best he could get was a taxi, which he really did not have the money for right now. So there was no point in him going at all.

When Vanitas came over and waved in his face, he considered tearing the man to pieces, if only to prevent him from noticing the tears in his eyes.

"Riku, listen," Vanitas incised. "I asked Roxas' dad where he'd gone, and he said the last he'd checked they were at his mom's bar. If we leave right now, we can get there and ask which venue they're at."

We? As in, Vanitas and Riku, together? In a car? Was Vanitas driving him? What?

"So you don't even know for certain where they'll be?" Riku warbled, refusing to give in to hope so easily.

"No," Vanitas shrugged, "but it doesn't hurt to try. Do you want to sit at home sulking instead?"

The most humiliating thing Riku could do right now was admit that Vanitas was right and agree to ride along. Instead, he decided to hold out a little longer, throwing his chin up with a petulant huff while keeping an eye on Vanitas from the corner of his gaze. Lucky for Riku, the ravenet stood his ground, too. Not that that meant Vanitas could hold back a snide quip while waiting.

"Riku," he warned, cocking his head and raising his brow. "You're not seriously going to leave Sora and that new kid alone for an entire night, are you?"

Not only was the comment stunning for its astuteness. What shocked Riku the most was that it made it sound like Vanitas pitied him.

A large part of Riku would rather die than do anything Vanitas suggested, let alone be subjected to an enclosed space with him for more than a second. A slightly larger part would rather die than leave Sora alone with a strange boy for more than a second.

The second won out, so within fifteen minutes Riku showered and accepted a more suitable outfit from Roxas' dad (Vanitas had quickly tired of Riku's moaning about being sweaty and underdressed and dragged him to Cloud Strife, who was handsome, in his early forties, and asked a disconcerting amount of questions about Sora for only having known the boy for a day).

As Riku changed in Roxas' bedroom, he stared around in curiosity, skimming through Roxas' LPs (copious metal, folk rock, and mowtown), CDs (almost all boy bands of every decade starting with the 90s, not good enough to be listened to on vinyl but passable enough for Roxas to have splintered and broken several of the plastic covers from transportation and overuse), and art books for several k-pop bands and Tim Burton movies (there was enough Nightmare Before Christmas memorabilia to start a small collection). He had apparently been doing some spring cleaning, because there was a bunch of grubby Naruto posters in a trash bag (Gaara was a favorite character- there were even two identical child's size large T-shirts saying "I was born a monster" rolled in forlorn, humiliated balls as deep as they would go) and the smell of pot barely lingered over the oppressive perfume of Febreeze. Over Roxas' bed hung a poster of what Riku assumed was Roxas' band, a trio dipped in faux leather, black eyeliner, and checkered statement pieces. They looked like diet Marlon Mansons and probably sang edgy pop rock ballads. They had named themselves the "Seasalt Trio".

"Sad," Riku lamented, snapping to attention when Vanitas rapped on the door. 

"Yo, we'll be late unless I speed in about two minutes," the man said while entering, quirking a brow as he watched Riku savage himself into his baggy turtleneck as fast as possible. 

"Could you warn me next time you barge in?" Riku spat, cheeks pinking as he realized the sweater had not fallen completely over his skinny-jean clad backside. Why didn't Cloud let Riku borrow a pair of cargo pants instead?

Vanitas gave him a weird look, most likely due to confusion about why Riku was so touchy about being undressed in front of others. Riku's suspicions were realized when Vanitas shrugged, "calm down, man, we're both guys. I just want to know when to start the car."

Vanitas' eye twitched as Riku shoved the turtleneck to mid thigh, which was a feat considering his height. When Riku continued avoiding his eye, instead using Roxas' mirror to settle the neck of the sweater just right, Vanitas continued, "are you trying to convert that thing into a dress or something?"

"Please keep me from killing him," Riku begged Kingdom Hearts under his breath, gritting his teeth to say, "I'm dressing for the occasion. Smart casual. Figured I'd just switch out my jeans and shoes."

"You look like an irish fisherman," Vanitas scoffed. "You know it's like, seventy degrees , right? In the bar it'll be a minimum of eighty. You were just complaining about how sweaty you felt in that thing."

"That was because of my denim jacket," Riku retorted, crumpling in exasperation when Vanitas' eyes bugged out of his head. 

"Are you serious, Riku? That thing looks like a sheepskin rug on you and you think the denim made you sweat? You could wrap your entire body in this thing."

"Just," Riku started, thought dying before he could voice it. 

Vanitas, with his cropped muscle tops, nipple rings, and harem pants that left little to the imagination, would never understand. So what if Riku was a little self conscious of his body? His ass and thighs were fucking enormous, at least to his mind, and his weight training routine did not help. Best to sheath his limbs in thick cotton blend than subject them to spandex. Besides, he'd do anything not to look like a meat head who waddled around in women's jeggings, went through hairspray like water, and talked of nothing but protein intake.

"If my legs rub holes into these..." Riku mumbled to Cloud's pants, bristling when Vanitas laughed. 

"You'll be fine for one night," the ravenet reassured, expression flattening when Riku glared at him.

As Riku bent to pick up his wallet, keys, and phone, Vanitas narrowed his eyes in final consternation. "Say," he started, biting his lip then plowing on despite Riku's heavy scowl, "are you that set on the sweater? I just feel like it bulks you up too much."

"What do you mean?" Riku snapped. Was Vanitas trying to say he looked fat?

"Nevermind," Vanitas said swiftly, shutting the door and calling through the frame, "I'll be in the car," before disappearing down the bedroom hall stairs.

If Riku listened closely, he could hear him laughing with Cloud in the living room. Broken, he peered at himself in the mirror again.

Perhaps Vanitas was right. He did look a bit wide in the oversized sweater. Though beautiful and expensive, it emphasized the worst parts of him, hid the rest, (well, except for his dick, but in jeans this tight, he didn't want to give that a second thought... why, oh why didn't Cloud have cargo pants?) And kind of washed him out.

"Fuck," he whispered, casting his eye on the olive green v neck tee Cloud had left as a second option. Gulping, Riku put it on.

Damn, did it make him look like a fuckboi.

"Riku!" He heard a bellow from below. "Car!"

"Shit!" He gasped as he spotted the time, almost tumbling down the stairs on his way out the door. 

Against his promise, Vanitas remained in the living room with Cloud instead of the car. When he noticed Riku coming down the stairs in the v neck rather than the sweater, his brows raised in surprise, eyes trailing over Riku's fitted form.

Cloud let out a small whistle and grinned. "Looking mighty good, kid!" He chirped. "What girl are you impressing tonight?"

Hearing such kind words from such a handsome man made Riku blush and beam between hunched, sheepish shoulders. He grew so lost in thoughts of Cloud saying even nicer things that he missed the part where Cloud thought he was straight until it was too late.

"Oh!" Cloud gasped in realization. "Oh, I didn't mean to assume-"

Catching on, the blood left Riku's face. Pallid, he insisted, "no, no, it's a girl. Name's Kairi. She's in college in Radiant Garden and I'm visiting for a concert..."

Kairi, another of his best friends, had graduated high school early and was just beginning her second semester of university. She was also the first and last close friend or family member Riku had admitted being gay to. He had wanted to tell Sora from the first day they'd met, and just before Kairi left for school she'd encouraged Riku to let the cat out of the bag... but Sora was so innocent and Riku refused to ruin his chances with him. Strangers, coworkers, and classmates were easy to be honest with, because for the swiftness with which they drifted in and out of Riku's life, he may as well have been divulging himself to phantoms, but family? How could Riku risk upending his fragile life any more than he had done in years before? 

It took everything in him not to meet Vanitas' eye as he fumbled through a cliff notes summary of how he and Kairi had fallen deep, surprising even himself with how real it all sounded as it stumbled off his tongue. 

"That's nice," Cloud said. Then he chortled, "my son would have gotten angry at me just now."

"Why?" Vanitas asked in amusement. Were he and Cloud going to have a full fledged conversation or was the ravenet going to drive Riku to Radiant Garden like he'd promised?

"He's gay, too," Cloud said, rolling his eyes as he confided near Vanitas' ear, "says whenever I assume someone's straight that it's insulting and heteronormative. I try to remember..."

Vanitas was not only gay, but out, too? Why had Riku assumed he was bi?

"At least you try," Vanitas shrugged with an understanding smile. "Some dads don't."

"Is he okay with you telling everyone what he is?" Riku blurted out. In his head, it had sounded like a question of breached privacy. When it came off his tongue, though, it sounded condemning, like Cloud had just admitted Roxas was a felon.

The tone threw Cloud a little but soon soured his expression, so much so that for a moment Riku grew nervous the man might hit him. 

When Riku's expression paled once more, consternation tangling his fingers together in vicous knots, the strange glimmer of pity that had besmirched Vanitas' expression so much tonight returned on Cloud. Why the hell were they both looking at Riku like that?

"He's proud of his sexuality," Cloud settled. "And I'm proud of him as a person. So I'm not afraid to talk about it, and he's happier when I do. That's all that matters to me."

Wow. Riku hadn't meant to sign up for a rainbow power talk tonight, he just wanted to ask Sora out, hearts dammit, but here he was all the same. And with the rate these two dolts were pontificating on the perils and joys of fatherhood, he'd never succeed!

"Well sir," he swallowed with a grimace, "lovely to meet you." Cloud's handshake was strong so Riku made his stronger. "Hope to talk with you again." Aka never, if Riku had any say in the matter, no matter how hot Cloud was or how big his bicep got when he shook Riku's hand. 

"You should come over for dinner some time," Cloud insisted with a beam of surprising warmth. "All of you! Since you're a good friend of Sora's, and Roxas and Sora get along like two peas in a pod, I'm sure you'd have a great time."

"And me?" Vanitas quipped.

Kingdom Hearts, what a dinner that would be. If Cloud asked Riku to invite his father as well, it would complete Riku's worst nightmare.

"Of course you're invited, Vanitas. Any friend or brother of Sora is a friend and brother to us!"

"Okay, see ya!" Riku bellowed, fleeing through the front door with jacket, keys, turtleneck, and wallet firmly in hand. 

Vanitas followed soon after, waving to Cloud and jogging to Riku's side. "Nice guy," he sighed, hopping in the Jeep's driver seat and starting the engine. 

Riku climbed in wordlessly, giving a big, bright smile to Cloud before donning a glare once the Jeep turned the street corner. 

The first half of the ride Riku remained silent, Vanitas accepting a call from someone Riku did not know nor care about. By the time the ravenet said goodbye, though, Riku's mood could not be fouler. When Vanitas sighed in contentment and murmured, "we're making good time," Riku fought hard not to look to the heavens.

"I know cool dads aren't supposed to exist," Vanitas chuckled. "But I'd say Cloud comes pretty close."

Riku put his head against the passenger window and thumped it with each beat of his heart, hopping that this conversation would soon be over. 

No such luck. For a blessed moment Vanitas turned his attention to the road, but then his gaze returned to the rear view mirror where, if he cocked his head a certain way, he could watch Riku indirectly. 

"So... Kairi, eh? Sorry for assuming you were into Sora, I guess, though I'm a little confused as to-"

"I lied," Riku found himself saying, moving through his shock quickly to add, "I'm not out."

For a moment Vanitas shut his mouth, nodding in some sort of understanding. Then, he started, "I'm glad you chose the t shirt," chuckling to himself before continuing, "it's much more practical and flattering. Sora definitely has-"

As Vanitas spoke, Riku unbuckled, threw on the denim jacket, buttoned it, rebuckled, and threw himself back in his seat with arms crossed. Vanitas watched him for a moment before returning his gaze to the road with lips pursed. 

Silence resumed, the vein in Vanitas' thick jaw winding tighter and tighter till it pulsed. Then, with brows knitted and gaze still averted, he announced, "just out of curiosity, Riku, what do you dislike so much about me? Is it my voice, the way I dress, the way I look, the things I say? I've felt it from you for years, and I'm obviously not going to change, but it may make the car ride more pleasant if I know what I'm doing wr-"

"You're talking," Riku said bluntly, which made Vanitas shut his mouth. As ten more minutes passed in silence, Riku grew uncomfortable enough to explain, "we're just two people who will never get along."

"Hm," Vanitas said with narrowed gaze, as if he wanted to say something but was trying very hard not to.

Ignoring him, Riku continued, "I didn't ask you to drive me to Radiant Garden but you're the only person who can help me right now. So trust me, your help is much appreciated. But I would rather slit my wrists and let you drink my blood-"

"Kingdom Hearts," Vanitas interjected in confounded horror, but Riku steamrolled on louder, "than talk to you. It's nothing personal, I just really don't like anything about you. And if you want to frustrate me for the rest of the evening, that's your right. But if you can find it in your heart to take pity on my resentment, then leave me be."

Huffing, Riku relaxed in his seat. He had not planned to confess his sexuality nor his years long undying hatred of Vanitas tonight, but it actually felt good to let it out. Still, he couldn't help the guilt tugging at his throat as Vanitas lost any facial expression and nodded.

"Fine by me," the ravenet said coolly. "I thought our insult throwing game was fun for you. If I'd known it was actual resentment I wouldn't have pushed your buttons."

There was that voice again. That sing song voice with a natural sneer to it, and the way it explained things... coolly yet self aggrandizing without meaning to... it made Riku want to scream. 

Riku nodded without apology, returning his gaze out the window but keeping his ear cocked to hear what Vanitas would say next. It surprised him when the man remained quiet. 

As Vanitas took the exit for Radiant Garden, Riku turned on the local station, finding with surprise that they were doing a sampler of new band tracks. When a familiar, sweet voice came on singing about "never forgetting someone," and a companion voice screamed "get it memorized," leading into a clumsy drum solo and bass riff, Vanitas cringed so hard he almost lost control of the wheel. Riku enjoyed watching as the announcer came on to call the band the "Seasalt Trio- a group of hot kids primed to steal your hearts," and Vanitas snorted and mumbled under his breath, "learn to play your fucking instruments first, toddlers." 

"Sorry," Vanitas added in a voice of mumbled frustration, more due to the band than Riku's previous plea for quiet. 

At least, Riku hoped Vanitas wasn't mad at him. He wanted to keep considering himself a good person but could not do that if he went around hurting people's feelings, even those of his enemies. Straightening, he realized why the last band playing was so familiar. It was Roxas' band. Being played on Radiant Garden's radio station. Were they that big?

"Fuck," he mumbled, hoping Sora wasn't as much of a fanboy as he had been when they were kids. They were the type to go to concerts dressed as their favorite band members (eyeliner, hairspray, and all) screaming and holding up their t-shirts (well, Sora sat on Riku's shoulders screaming and waving his t shirt. He'd even bob up and down and press his hips against the back of Riku's neck to get leverage when the spotlights flew his way, as he was so short back then. Hearts, those were good times), and begging for free merch. There was even a time that Sora had a full bedroom wall dedicated to band memorabilia. His other wall used to be filled with anime posters. Mostly of Naruto and Gaara, because Sora thought they were a cooler duo than Naruto and Sasuke. Come to think of it, Sora was quite loud about his distaste for Sasuke, reminding the world whenever he could that Sasuke was a bad friend.

Wait a minute. Roxas had Gaara posters in his room. And boy band memorabilia. And Sora always played Naruto in childhood games while Riku took on the role of Sasuke or even worse, Kakashi (because Sora would often say Sasuke was reserved for Vanitas, even though he'd cry about how Vanitas never wanted to play with him... Kingdom Hearts, how had that memory come back so randomly?) Come to think of it, most of the time, while Kairi got to play anyone from Pain, to Konan, to Granny Chio, to Sakura, Riku was relegated to wise old teacher or ultimate baddy with no chance of redemption. Half the time, when Kairi and Sora would be galavanting on the other side of the beach on their quest to find him, he'd be waiting around talking to random beach goers, building sand castles, and preparing a bad guy script should Kairi and Sora ever make it over to him. He honestly liked playing the teachers more, even though they became the butt of every joke, because it meant he could be closer to Sora and not have to wait around so much.

Hearts dammit, had his childhood really been so pitiful, or was he just remembering it that way now because he was in a bad mood?

"Fuck," he thought to himself, imagining a bizarre childhood scenario where Roxas stole Sora from him because they wanted to play Gaara and Naruto, while he sat in lonesomeness on the sand watching the waves come in.

Kingdom Hearts, what if Roxas had more in common with Sora than he did?

"Fuck!" Riku growled a third time, making Vanitas snap to attention and look in his side and rear view mirrors.

"What's wrong?" The ravenet asked.

Riku shook his head in dismissal, mumbling an incoherent apology. When the car abruptly turned right into a dirt parking lot behind a bustling dive bar, he snapped into the present.

"Looks like we won't have to ask Roxas' mom where the venue is," Vanitas chuckled.

Riku looked into the distance to a street called Loveless Avenue, above its signage a poster saying "Rocking the Burough" with a stock photo of a black clad rock band on the bottom. Riku gulped as he stared at the throng of people hurrying down the road past it.

As Vanitas parked behind the bar, Riku looked from his new denim jacket to the miniskirts and muscle tops sheathing the partygoers outside and thought Vanitas belonged here more than he ever would. At least Sora would be easy to find. 

The Jeep's driver door closed with a slam as Riku's opened. Vanitas stood by the hood with a cigarette perched between his teeth and a crooked grin. Somehow, he had donned a leather jacket Riku had not noticed till now, and combat boots. Other than that, the harem pants, muscle top, and nipple ring remained. 

"Come on, kid," the ravenet said with a wink, sucking in the night air scented with smoke, booze, and artificial fog like a vampire sucking blood. "It's showtime."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning: this story will get dark and/or very sexual in future. It'll mostly be Vaniku (foe yay ftw) so SoRikus, don't get your hopes up (SoRokus, on the other hand, please do). Regardless, there will be much sexual tension from all sides. 
> 
> Also, despite the swiftness with which I posted this chapter, I am usually a slow poster. I'll probably have other fics going up at the same time as this one, so those interested will have other work to peruse in the interim. 
> 
> Keep kudoing!


	3. Accidents Never Happen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riku makes it to the Sea Salt Trio's concert... but will he survive it in one piece?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Language, gross images.

“Where are we going?” Asked Riku, tailing Vanitas like a ball and chain as the ravenet sailed towards the dive bar's patio steps. 

“Bathroom and pregame,” Vanitas called over his shoulder, hopping the steps two at a time as Riku stumbled behind, turtleneck sweater flapping in the wind.

When Riku checked his watch, he gaped in surprise. They were still early for the concert, but there wasn't enough time to have a drink before Roxas was due to go on.

Not that anyone had even given Riku a clear start time to begin with. “Vanitas,” he tried calling as Vanitas slithered through the double entrance doors, but the ravenet was too leaps ahead, carving a spot for himself at the counter on a worm-eaten leather stool and hailing down the bartender. By the time Riku caught their attention, the bartender was presenting a pair shot glasses filled with a variety of liquids Riku didn't care to name. The effluvium of smoke, beer, and sweat filled his lungs and throbbing music and cackling voices assailed his ears. His anxiety was becoming kinetic, causing his arms to jitter and his teeth to grind. Perspiration prickled down the center of his back like a long nail, and batting it away was useless.

Why couldn't they just get out of here? Why was Vanitas having another random chat with a stranger instead of doing as he had promised? Why was he calling Riku closer?

“Fucker,” Riku spat loud enough for some college kids behind to spring up in alarm. He evaded their scoffs as he bulldozed his way to Vanitas' side, forcing a smile when Vanitas patted him on the back right where the perspiration had pooled into an imperious droplet waiting to plummet into his waistline. As it met its final destination while also leaving a stain of remembrance in the center of Cloud’s olive-green v-neck (still housed deep within the shrouds or Riku’s excessive outerwear) Riku held back a grimace and wheezed a hello.

“This is the Riku I was telling you about, Ms. Lockhart,” Vanitas cooed, and if Riku wasn't misreading that golden gazed smirk he'd say Vanitas was flirting with her.

Not that Riku blamed him. The woman was beautiful: jet black hair past her waist, warm crimson eyes, a mischievous smile, and drop earrings that somehow complimented the white cropped tank barely covering her ample bosom and leather pleated skirt guarding her thighs. The wardrobe was appropriate for this bar turned sauna, and the yellowing of sweat on her white top as well as the stray strands of dripping hair along the crown of her head were somehow becoming in their ebullience.

“Look at you handsome boys!” Ms. Lockhart gasped, taking Riku and Vanitas in together but faltering on Riku's skinny jeans. “Are those Cloud's?” She balked. 

Riku raised his brows in astonishment before realizing this must be Roxas' mother. “Hello, ma'am,” he greeted, throwing out his hand for her to shake. “I'm Sora's best friend, emphasis on best, and I've gotten to know your son Roxas well over the past-“ 

Ms. Lockhart threw back her head and cackled as Vanitas rubbed his forehead with his palm. 

“Has Cloud been telling everyone I'm his wife?” The woman asked with a glow to her cheeks.

“Just that you're Roxas' mom,” Vanitas responded.

“I'm his current long-distance mom, I guess,” Ms. Lockhart sighed, chuckling, “kid won't leave me alone for a second. But I'm not his biological mother. That would be Aerith Gainsborough, living in Olympus now with her childhood sweetheart.”

“Aw, jealous,” Vanitas groaned. Olympus was across the ocean and happened to be one of the most beautiful places on earth. “I've only been once and it was the best time of my life.”

Wait, Vanitas had been to Olympus? Lies. Riku had hardly been outside his backyard, how could Vanitas have crossed oceans? His garage recording studio couldn't be that successful.

“Trust me, Roxas loves it there, too,” Ms. Lockhart snorted, a pinch of bite to her voice. “It's hard to compete with a bungalow in the Mediterranean.” That said, she indicated the bar and cocked her head to the side, making Vanitas bubble with attractive laughter.

“I like this place,” he cooed, arranging the drinks before him in a line. “It's authentic.”

“That's one word for it,” Ms. Lockhart chortled. “And call me Tifa.”

“Thanks, Tifa,” Vanitas saluted with his glass of what looked like stout. “Now, can you explain to Riku how to take this?”

Tifa nodded and leaned over the counter, pointing from one drink to the other and taking out a can of red bull in the process. “Now here you have a Guinness,” she explained, revealing a half pint of stout from behind her back and lining it up with the shot of milky brown liquid. “And in this shot glass you have bailey's cream and whiskey. Normally for an Irish car bomb you drop the shot in and drink it like that-”

“A what?” Riku snapped in alarm, and Vanitas snorted and patted his shoulder.

“Drink name, Riku.”

“If you want, I can mix everything together. For the Jägerbomb, you have a can of red bull,” Tifa continued, pointing to the can and its accompanying shot of blood red, “and you drop in a shot of Jägermeister. Which one wants which?”

“You feeling rowdy or wicked?” Vanitas cooed, curling the tip of his tongue between his teeth as though it were forked. The motion was alluring in a strange way: contained, performative, yet nonchalant? Riku did not know exactly why it made him feel upset, but it did. It felt like Vanitas was using him as a punchline without telling Riku the joke.

Despite never having touched a real cocktail in his life (bad beer, whiskey mixed with coke, and vodka and ginger ale were all the experience his high-school-self had accumulated), Riku straightened his shoulders and said in a deep, brusque voice, “I'll take the one that'll give me a better time.”

“Well, then,” Vanitas chirped, turning to Tifa with sparkling eyes.

Tifa nodded and poured the red bull into another empty pint glass. Then she grabbed the shots of blood red liquid and creamy brown and held them respectively over the red bull and black stout.

“Okay, Van, I assume you're taking the stout?” She made sure.

“Here, I'll drop my own in,” Vanitas offered, taking the creamy shot and stout from her hand. “So you can have one too.”

Tifa smiled and made herself the same drink as Vanitas, attracting the attention of nearly everyone in the bar until it was fifteen minutes later and all had a bomb drink. 

“Alright people, let's count it down!” Tifa roared over the din, receiving a thunderous whoop in return. “Five, four, three, two, one, drop!”

Despite the sweat and worry sticking his hair to his neck and forehead (Cloud’s olive t-shirt was now bonded eternally to his torso) Riku dropped his shot into the red bull and drank it as fast as he could, ignoring the way the fizz and burn made his ears pop and his eyes water. When he finished last, the bar's roared applause threatened to deafen him. The combination of celebration and red bull inspired him to accept a second shot from a female patron at the end of the bar, whose friend bought Vanitas another round as well. Unfortunately for them, only Vanitas reciprocated the favor, toasting them as they giggled amongst themselves but offering little attention otherwise. Meanwhile, Riku moved from sweat drenched to living heat source, ejecting pressurized steam as he shed his denim jacket and tied it around his waist, which was a feat with how glued it had been to his wool sweater.

“Thank you, Tifa,” Vanitas said once the din returned to normal. “By the way, do you know where Roxas is performing tonight?”

“Oh! Are you two going?”

“We're actually half an hour late,” Riku hissed. The shots were just beginning to take effect, but at the rate Tifa and Vanitas were talking, his liquid courage would disappear long before he got within kissing length of Sora.

“But they're not starting till 11,” Tifa queried. 

Riku's mouth dropped open. 11?! Sora had school tomorrow! Riku had school tomorrow! And Vanitas... well, who gave a fuck what Vanitas had tomorrow?

“That's funny,” the weasel drawled in overdone curiosity. “Cause Cloud said they're going on at ten.”

“Oh, please,” Tifa snorted, leaning in before mouthing in Vanitas' ear, “Cloud doesn't know a damn thing about Roxas.”

“Oh?” Vanitas blurted out.

“Cloud's so straightlaced,” Tifa droned, rolling her eyes and waving her hand behind her. “Thinks Roxas is some angel child. I know better. You want the real details, you come to me.”

“So, he's a troublemaker?” Riku snapped, mind revisiting the scenario of Sora being kidnapped from his bedroom window with backpack in hand. If Roxas was a hardened criminal, the lack of evidence would make sense. 

“He's not a delinquent!” Tifa balked, faltering and chuckling over some memory Riku had no interest in becoming acquainted with. “He's an average kid. How about you, Van, didn't you get into any trouble as a youngster?”

“Course I did!” Vanitas cried, injured by the supposition that he had perhaps not been a troublemaker. “I, on the other hand, _was_ a delinquent.”

“Pray tell?” Tifa encouraged. Riku would have ended the conversation then and there if he weren’t so interested in what Vanitas had done as well. Damn his nosiness. 

A hint of rouge peeled out from under Vanitas’ bronze skin, crinkling the corners of his eyes with embarrassment. Why was he so bashful when he had just announced his previous delinquency with pride? The mendacity!

“It ran the gamut,” he summarized with thumb bit between his teeth, relaxing and uncorking his mouth to smirk, “vandalism, arson, fighting, smoking and drinking on school property. It’s a wonder I graduated.”

“Are your delinquent days through?” Tifa responded, a modicum of the maternal infecting her tone.

“Absolutely!” Vanitas ensured through another blush. “Took living with my dad for a year to realize that’s no life.”

“Oh, babe, I’m sorry,” Tifa whispered, taking Vanitas’ hand and giving it a squeeze. 

The touch was a shock, but Vanitas seemed to bloom under it, his shoulders curling in like sepals as the petals of his cheeks, pearly teeth, and girl thick black lashes fanned and glowed with infuriating brilliance. Riku, after years of practice, knew when Vanitas was being a sycophant (ninety nine percent of the time) and when he was genuinely appreciative (just right now, no other time to Riku’s knowledge), so it was a smidge horrifying to see that kind of reaction in such a monstrous body. Perhaps the terror of witnessing Vanitas in that unnatural state was what made Riku blush and his heart leap. It was crazy how alike yet unalike to Sora the weasel looked, and yet how beautiful he managed to be. 

“Alright, time to go,” Riku barked, dashing from his barstool before his Red Bull addled brain could drag him any further into the pit. 

Unfortunately, his barstool decided to dash along, pinging from under him and shooting with a clatter down the bar area steps with Riku tumbling like a roll-poly behind. Before his head could meet the ground, it met the calves of one of the college students who had heard him shout “fucker” earlier. When the man turned and met Riku’s confused glare, he burst into laughter as his homeboys whipped out their phones. 

“Dude, he’s wasted!” One cackled as Riku attempted without luck to hoist himself up. 

Wasted? Far from it! Discombobulation was what it was. The physics of being taken out of the logical loop of human movement and then being commanded to right oneself in such little time, plagued by vertigo, bright lights, and the har-hars of inebriated frat boys all the while. Wasted wasn’t anywhere in Riku’s vocabulary. At least not since high school.

As if being insulted by wannabe boating catalogue models wasn’t enough, Vanitas had the audacity to leap over and try to help Riku up. Even Tifa, whom Riku had previously pegged as intelligent, threw herself over the bar counter with a concerned gape to balk, “Kingdom Hearts, he went down like the Titanic!”

“No,” Riku elucidated. “The Titanic took an hour to sink and broke in half first, which I did not.” How stolid his tone was! Ten points for Riku. “I don’t even get why you’re all bothered, I’m fine, the barstool was just slippery-”

“I got you, bud,” Vanitas assured, picking Riku up under the arms and attempting to smuggle his sheepskin rug of a sweater over his head, which clung so valiantly to Riku's undershirt that everything came off in one go, leaving Riku to sink topless to the ground. 

“Oh, Hearts,” Vanitas cursed, fishing Cloud's v-neck now sopping with sweat from the woolen turtleneck and shimmying it over Riku's head before the boy could notice it had gone. 

So… now Riku was not fine.

“You asshole!” He squeaked, shielding his naked upper body as Vanitas continued trying to wrangle him into his shirt.

“Turn your fucking phones off or get out, losers!” Tifa thundered overhead, leaping at the frat boys and unintentionally covering their cameras with her bosom as she herded them away. “You like taking video? Then go somewhere else!”

“Riku, just put your motherfucking arms up, you twat!” Vanitas spat, rolling his eyes and shoving the top down when Riku complied.

“Now give me my sweater,” Riku buffeted, but Vanitas was already rushing him towards the porch.

“Many thanks, Tif!” the ravenet boomed on his way through the batwing doors. “Do you know a shortcut to the venue?”

“I’ll give Rox a call!” Tifa retorted, still shepherding the frat boys away. She winked and waved over her head, “come by whenever you’re in town, Van! My home’s yours,” adding as an afterthought, “and Riku, too!” as the silveret ducked his head.

The moment Riku hit fresh air, his legs threatened buckling and Vanitas had to hoist him up again. 

“Dude, are you okay?” The weasel surprised Riku with his most boorish tone of the night.

In return, Riku shoved out of his grasp and walked ten paces ahead, rubbing his chest to stop his heart beating so hard. The closest he had ever had to an energy drink before tonight was drip coffee. Now, he wanted to tear off his skin and zoom into the night like a hell hound. His insides had turned into jumping beans and his legs danced of their own accord.

“Hearts, did you put something in my drink?” He spat as a zephyr sent a chill down his spine and the scent of a nearby garden around his head. The sharp zip of lemon and orange swirled around his chin before settling against his upper lip like a balm. He dove nose first towards the source, plopping his temple against a cobbled wall and groaning at its coolness. Soon, with the wind and his damp clothing, he was shivering. “Riku,” he heard in a mushy voice, “we really will be late if we don’t hurry.” Skunk invaded his nostrils, destroying the calming effect of the garden over the wall, and Riku let out a long, low groan.

“What are you doing?” he demanded into the cobbles.

First, a sigh. Then Vanitas retorted, “I’m smoking,” in the nadir of his vocal register. The skunk smell was colored with sweet onion. When Vanitas blew out, it got worse.

“Are you trying to get absolutely fucked?” spat Riku, swiveling his head to glower Vanitas to ashes.

Sure enough, Vanitas had a small blunt perched between his lips. He smoked like a bandit scavenging butts from the roadside, pressing his thumb and forefinger around the paper and squinting his eyes, hunching his shoulders, and sucking in his cheeks as he inhaled before letting the tension roll off with each exhale, head facing the moon in ecstasy. “I’m trying to have fun, Riku,” he murmured with face still upturned. “One of life’s joys you’ve been barring me from this entire evening.”

“Does that help the jitters?” Riku blurted out.

“Jitters? Like anxiety?”

“Yeah, I feel like I’m going to jump out of my skin.”

Reservation pursed Vanitas’ lips as he gave the blunt a long gaze. Then, grimacing, he shuffled towards Riku and held it out. “You smoke it from my hand,” he warned the closer Riku got, adding in a quick jumble, “and only a tiny bit,” while Riku puffed. As Riku exhaled, he asked, “you ever even smoked before?”

“In high school,” Riku sniffed, wiping his nose and perking one ear for signs of surrounding life. The concert sounded like it was coming from his left, vibrating through the skinny jeans encasing his thigh. 

Wait, sorry. That was his phone.

“Sora!” He cried into the receiver, elation almost fumbling it to the ground before Vanitas helped him catch it. “It’s Riku! I’m here, I’m in Radiant Garden looking for you!”

“Riku,” Vanitas grimaced in disgust, no doubt in reply to Riku’s maudlin tone, but the silveret was relentless, barraging on, “where are you, where can I find you?” In an ever-rising pitch.

 _I’m backstage_ , Sora retorted over the line. Despite the celebratory noises echoing behind him, he sounded miffed.

“Are you okay?” Riku responded in worry.

A sigh dragged across the phone, then exchanged, distant whispers. 

_Roxas got a call from his mom saying that Vanitas wanted to know where I was._

“Can I talk to him?” Vanitas asked over Riku’s shoulder, but Riku shooed him away and continued, “we just want to know where the venue is, So. You promised to tell me earlier but never did.”

 _Oh, my hearts, Riku, stop being such a mom_ , Sora whined, and Riku had to squint and crane his neck to interpret him (although turning up the phone volume might have been more effective). 

“What do you mean?” Riku blubbered.

_Just don’t call me So when he’s within hearing distance, okay? And don’t mention our childhoods and Kairi and especially not the raft. That was so embarrassing._

The raft? Also known as the most important event of their childhoods, when the three of them had set swashbuckling sail on the high seas during a summer vacation to Luca, only to capsize, get stranded on a sister island, and remain so until two days later when located by the coast guard, having survived on nothing but paopu fruit, rainwater, and pee? They shat themselves the entire ride home and were sick for days after (turned out paopu was only edible when ripe) but the bonds of friendship that adventure created were priceless!

 _Raft?_ Riku thought he heard Roxas reply, to which Sora stuttered some unintelligible response before moving to a quieter area to continue, _I just don’t want him to think of me as a kid. You, Vanitas, and Tifa call bombing us has been enough._

“Don’t we deserve to know where you are?” Vanitas barked down the line without Riku’s permission. When Riku leapt out of the way, Vanitas scowled and dug out his own phone, harrumphing when he saw he had gotten a message. 

_Why is Vanitas with you, Riku? I thought you hated him!_

“He offered to take me after I missed the train,” Riku explained after Vanitas turned away to answer a call. “If you’d told me where the venue was earlier, I would have said no.”

 _Why are you so interested, anyway?_ Sora whined. _It’s not even that fun. We can have so many other fun times together._

“Wait a minute, are you saying you don’t want me there?”

Sora grew silent before murmuring, _of course I want you here, Riku. I just forgot is all. I’ll get Roxas to text you._

“No, Sora, I want you to text me!” Riku commanded in a tight voice. “Otherwise, I’ll get the message when everyone’s packing up!”

“Hey, Riku, Roxas just shot me the location,” Vanitas murmured by Riku’s ear, walking ahead without bothering to see if the silveret would follow. 

_Oh my hearts, Riku, I’ll tell you as soon as I-_

Suddenly, Sora’s line cut off. When Riku tried redialing to no avail, he fired towards Vanitas like a bolt of lightning.

“Hey, Sora,” Vanitas drawled into his own phone. So, the _weasel_ had been the cause of Sora ending his call with Riku! “Any good reason for ignoring your best friend all evening?”

“Oh, don’t pretend to stick up for me,” Riku snapped, but the screeching across the line was too distracting for Vanitas to hear him.

“Don’t shout at me!” Vanitas boomed in a voice that made Riku jump. Luckily for him, Vanitas’ anger was directed at Sora. “You’re rude! Roxas wanted Riku to come, too. If you want alone time so bad, just ask him on a date.”

“Me?” Riku hissed in hope, but Vanitas shooed him and walked faster.

“I didn’t even fucking want to be here, but Riku was looking at an entire evening alone-”

“No, don’t say that!” Riku gasped. “That sounds so uncool!”

“You ever heard of bros over hoes, Sora? Don’t give me that shit, you’ve known Riku far longer than Roxas. Then act like a fucking friend- as, fuck,” Vanitas blurted at the end, holding away the phone and pinching the bridge of his nose before continuing, “you’re just crying to make me hang up!”

“Vanitas, stop,” Riku insisted, charging up and clinging to his shoulder. “Just leave it. I don’t want to be the bad guy.”

Though Vanitas pretended not to hear him, he rose his voice to say, “fine, I’ll hang up. Roxas told me where you are already, so bye.” After punching the end call button, he asked for Riku’s number.

“What? I’m not giving you my number!”

“Just give me your damn number and I’ll send you the address and pictures.”

“I’ll just add the address to my google search-“

“Riku, I swear to Kingdom Hearts I will leave you alone but for the love of all things holy, let me help you. I know the guys in charge of the venue and can get you backstage, I just have to be with you when you go in-“

“If you know the venue so well, then why did Roxas have to tell you where he was?”

Vanitas’ neck vein had grown twice its size, giving him a boa-constrictor-on-my-throat vibe. Averting his gaze and whispering a string of curses too swift and impassioned to be decipherable, he stoppered himself with a long drag from his blunt. Two minutes later, he turned, subdued, and recapitulated, “I have been a fixture of this festival since tenth grade. I don’t owe you an explanation on how, but I happen to have been in a lot of bands around this region in some shape or form. The tech know me, the bouncers know me, the organizers know me, and the artists know me. The only reason Roxas doesn’t is because he’s new to the game. Each band, depending on clout, gets a certain backstage area, and since I haven’t been to this festival in a year and a half, I had no fucking clue where that was until now. So, you can follow me, or I can take you home, or you can find yourself a ride, or I can take a two hour walk while you fuck around and get lost. _Then_ I’ll take you home. So, what’ll it be?”

Then came the inevitable stare down. 

Riku wasn’t one to lose in these sorts of things, and dammit, he wanted to be pissed off enough to fight back, he really did, but the weed had just dropped in and he was finding it difficult to keep a straight face. “Can I have another drag before we go?” He settled on in the staidest tone he could muster, to which Vanitas handed over his blunt and muttered, “you may.”

So: a draw? No. Never. 

After returning the blunt and watching Vanitas suck it to a nub, Riku commented, “I think I know why you smoke so much.”

“Yeah? Why.”

“Anger management. Deep down, you’re an extremely aggressive person. That neck vein could lasso a rhino. It’s a real public service you’re doing, protecting the people like this. Hats off to you.”

“It’s so funny you say that,” Vanitas breathed sardonically, eyes widening as if he had just received a revelation, “because I know this friend of my brother’s who’s the exact same way, neck vein and all. Only it’s ten times as obvious because he’s so pale.”

The clever attack almost made Riku pad at his neck to see if his own vein, was, in fact, massively visible, but he refused to give in to his anxiety at such a crucial moment. “At least your brother’s friend doesn’t need to smoke,” he mocked, “you know, to take off the edge?”

“Except he really does,” Vanitas replied in faux pity. “He needs serious sedation.”

For some self-sabotaging reason, Riku’s mind replaced sedation with seduction, and suddenly he couldn’t hold back a giggle. Vanitas’ ensuing, pallid gaze only made him muffle his laughter harder. Vanitas’ further ensuing grin tugging stoic bronze cheeks, along with his breathy, “what’s so funny,” made Riku burst out into cackles. 

“What?” Vanitas relaxed, giggling himself. “What, you goof?”

“Goof? You did not...” Riku wheezed, slapping his knee and crying with joy. “Like Goofy! Kingdom Hearts...”

“I’ve baked you,” Vanitas responded with a smirk and badly held chortles that puffed out his pursed, grinning cheeks. “Wow, I am so fucked tomorrow.”

“If only I could fuck Sora,” Riku admitted, bursting into more laughter when Vanitas shivered.

“Please do not confide that in me-”

“Your brother is perhaps the sexiest creature on earth-”

“-911, I need to report a disappearance. This is not the real Riku-”

“I’ll treat him well,” Riku rebuked, slapping Vanitas on the back and beaming when actual discomfort made the ravenet squirm. Hearts, he loved torturing the man. “I’m very good in bed and learned from a man much older and wiser than I.”

“Okay, this is where you actually stop, Riku,” Vanitas intoned through a final drag, slithering from Riku’s grasp like the weasel he was on the pretense of stubbing the blunt carcass into the street corner. “You’re too cross faded to function-”

“Function? I’m functioning just fine! Bet you I can run with my eyes closed-”

Before Riku could really sabotage himself, Vanitas caught him by the arm and swung him around so they were going down an opposite street. The feeling of Vanitas’ cold palm against his molten skin was a shock that made Riku want to get closer to him.

“Are you warm in that leather jacket?” the silveret asked on a whim, latching onto the repetitive motion Vanitas’ back made as his shoulder blades rotated above the sway of his arms.

Moonlight bounded from one side of the jacket to the other with each of the ravenet’s footsteps, as if the muscles of his body’s hemispheres were playing catch, cradling the light and rolling it down before letting it disappear back to the other side. 

“Why, are you cold?” Riku thought he heard Vanitas say, but for some reason his heart wanted to believe it was the man’s body, instead, using the surfeit moonlight to wink at him.

Vanitas’ whole form brimmed with hiding places. Just when Riku thought he had caught each glimmer, the reflections leapt away: shoulder, to outer arm, to side, to outer thigh, to inner thigh...

He didn’t realize that Vanitas expected an answer until the man looked back at him, causing both of them to freeze when Vanitas realized where Riku’s eyes had been. He didn’t even give Riku time to blush before whipping back around, digging his hands in his pockets, and sailing on, letting nothing variegate his stride as he ducked down the nearest tenfoot where the shadowy property walls on either side eclipsed him.

The light show ended with Riku’s stumbled turning. In seconds, the silveret was following through the inchoate nothingness, acrimony biting his insides as the balmy, lemon and orange night kissed his nose and begged entry to his lips. He whistled as if nothing had happened, because nothing of value, no vicissitudes, no moments of beauty with a beginning, middle, and end ever happened to him, and he wouldn’t let them, because that would be admitting defeat. 

Hearts, his mouth was dry. When he spit, nothing came out. 

“We’ll get you water on the way,” Vanitas deduced, breaking the careful balance with a careless tone tainted by inveterate pity that, in his delirium, Riku hoped was entirely for him.

“I’m starving, too,” the silveret offered. “Haven’t eaten since lunch.”

This stopped Vanitas in his tracks. “Are you fucking kidding me?” He gasped, mouth and body swollen with incredulity yet eyes shrouded.

Riku shook his head and patted his stomach. “No time. Thought I’d be able to get something at the venue.”

“We are at the venue,” Vanitas retorted, swiveling Riku down yet another alley before adding, “so let’s get you something.”

One bodega, two waters, and six breakfast burritos later, Riku and Vanitas were swooping through the streets with sides split and cheeks bursting with grins.

“Ah hah hah hah,” Riku bellowed with his hand on his gut, spiting the sky with each utterance. Past and future became irrelevant as his world drifted into slow motion, the trees surrounding shimmering with colors too countless to decipher. “Look, Van, it’s ridiculous!” He announced, throwing his arms behind him ninja style and sliding his legs one in front of the other with utter seriousness. “This is the fastest I can go! I’m a snail!”

Vanitas roared with laughter that would put the gods to shame, bending over and covering his mouth to spare the world. “Oh Hearts,” he croaked, setting the crown of his head on the nearest wall, closing his eyes, and pressing his palms flat on either side of him. “Too many burritos.”

“Eating fast before running will do that,” Riku offered, refusing to be caught staring this time. “I learned that the hard way in track and cross country.”

“High school?”

“Yeah. Anxiety may have been to blame, too. Before every race I’d either throw up or have the shits.”

“If your goal is to make me sick faster, you’re succeeding.”

Riku grinned, crossed the road, and leaned at Vanitas’ side with his hand balanced inches from the man’s spine. The skin was exposed right at the sacrum, where Riku could catch the start of two dimples.

Shutting his eyes so that the dimples would disappear, Riku listened to the concert in the distance. It felt so akin to those times at Destiny Islands Beach, ducking beneath the waves and listening to the sea’s melody, along with the splashing and laughter and ice cream truck jingle on the sand. Despite his peregrine mind, Riku’s hand needed anchoring. His thumb and forefinger caught the dips of Vanitas’ back and dug in, feeling the bone beneath, while the flat of his palm sought Vanitas’ knobbed spine.

“What are you doing, Riku?” Vanitas warned. Though his voice remained even, the muscles of his sides writhed the higher Riku’s hand kneaded.

“I’m nursing you,” Riku scoffed. Sometimes, he got so lonely he feared he might freeze to death. Wait, where had that thought come from? Focus, Riku! “I’m acting as a heat compress.”

“Your hands are freezing.”

“Are they?” Riku whispered, accepting defeat and sliding them under his own shirt. He harrumphed as he cupped his stomach, feeling a glimmer of Vanitas’ warmth emanating into him. “They’re not that cold to me.”

Vanitas’ ensuing grumbling was so indecipherable that Riku had to bend parallel to listen. Here, with his head against the wall and turned right, he could only see Vanitas’ face as the ravenet shut his eyes and situated himself in a more comfortable slump.

Vanitas’ lips moved as he mumbled, gravity donning his cheeks a pouty, babyish plumpness normally hidden by sharp jaws and thick mandibles.

The urge to set his cheek against Vanitas’ grew so overwhelming that Riku refused to do otherwise. The moment his skin hit Vanitas’, though, the ravenet leapt up as if scalded.

“Riku!” He spat. “What the fuck, I just said I was about to throw up!”

“Oh, yeah,” Riku whispered, seeking the courage to be embarrassed for his wanton affection before an odd sound from Vanitas’ throat stole any emotion at all. In fact, the more Vanitas groaned and writhed, the more Riku’s stomach called attention to itself. He was one of those unfortunate souls who threw up whenever he saw someone else throwing up. Another lesson learned from being childhood friends with Sora. The kid must’ve gotten food poisoning at least once a month from picking up random shit from the ground or refusing to abandon spoiled food from the fridge.

“If you throw up, I’m definitely going to throw up,” he swallowed, feeling his stomach bubble on cue. 

“Bodega burritos,” Vanitas mouthed to himself, now unaware of Riku’s existence completely. “Never, ever, ever again. Fucking Radiant Garden suck my dick.”

Nice to know Vanitas retained his colorful vocabulary even when ill.

“I’m going to go down the street and cover my ears,” Riku announced, receiving a groan of pain when he patted Vanitas’ back. Luck transported him out of the vicinity before he could hear any gags or splatters.

Ten minutes later, Vanitas returned, visibly pale and wiped out. Neither men needed any work dispelling the atmosphere left by Riku’s lachrymose fondles now. Nausea had been sufficient enough. It even had the gall to make Riku feel like a dumb ass. Who invaded the personal space of a dude about to blow chunks? Oh, yeah, Riku, the biggest dolt on the planet...

“How are you?” he asked, not expecting a response.

Vanitas shook his head before cocking it for Riku to follow. They walked in silence for another short spurt before the weasel’s grimace deepened enough for his mouth to open.

“You know what Sora doesn’t like, Riku?” He announced as if it had been on his mind for ages, answering himself, “obscurity. We’re brothers that way. We both need people who are transparent. Who say how they feel.”

“Excuse me, what?”

“He doesn’t like people controlling him or monitoring him on the pretext of caring. You don’t have to keep tabs on someone twenty-four seven to figure them out. There’s no prize for that.”

Stupefaction buffeted Riku until the only expression he could muster was a blank, slow blinking stare, like his brain had stumbled on a lag and needed rebooting. 

“Kingdom Hearts, don’t give me that face,” Vanitas impugned. “I’m just saying that I hope you don’t make staring at people’s asses when they’re not looking and stealing a kiss when they’re about to throw up a habit-”

Now would have been a good time for Riku to check on his neck vein, because the terrifying, amorphous enmity that slept inside him most days but pounced in flickers whenever he was stuck around Vanitas sober leapt into a conflagration of abhorrence that made him wonder how he would have dealt with the man if not high. “You’re insane,” he settled on. “I wouldn’t be caught dead within a mile of you.”

“Oh, really? So how close were you ten minutes ago?”

“I was offering a helping hand,” Riku castigated, adding, “Sora really was right about you being a head case,” in thoughtless imprecation. The quote was correct, but the sentiment was not. Sora had said it as a joke. Riku made it sound like a secret confession. 

“I’m not saying you took advantage of me,” the ravenet intoned. His equanimity was shocking. “I’m just noticing some alarming trends that make me a little less inclined to leave my brother alone with you-”

“Don’t talk to me like I’d hurt Sora,” Riku impugned. “Unlike you, I actually know what it feels like.”

“What, to be hurt? Do you think I’m inhuman?”

“No, I just think you’re full of shit.”

“Well, I think you need counseling. Or at least someone to teach you authenticity.” 

“I’ve learned all I need to, thank you very much.”

“Oh, let me guess, from the guy older and wiser than you, right?” Vanitas sneered; equanimity gone. “Teach you all the ways of the world? Tell me he wasn’t one of your community college professors.”

“Junior high,” Riku retorted, forethought the farthest thing from his mind. As soon as he said it, his skin blanched as if boiled, screwing his mouth shut and bugging his eyes, his breath hitching and nostrils flaring in silent prayer that Vanitas had not heard him. 

The weasel’s ensuing silence was a death sentence. Then came the eulogy, a barely existent “oh.” 

Riku could not redact fast enough. 

“I say junior high but I was practically sixteen,” he fudged, thundering on, “he didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to, really, and it was short as hell, and not even that sexual because he was mostly a mentor...” until he ran himself out of gas and stuttered to a close with, “you had to have had a weird teacher crush, too, right?”

“I wouldn’t call what you’re talking about a crush.”

“Well, whatever, who cares,” Riku barked, deepening his voice and squaring his shoulders as if it were nothing, though it took every muscle and force of will to make his body obey. “I learned a lot from him and he was the first person to see something special in me besides Sora. So... win, win.”

Fuck. It sounded cooler in his head than it did coming out of his mouth. 

Before unpleasant memories could make Riku’s head spin, Vanitas split the swollen silence with a shrug, continuing as if the previous dive in conversation was a mirage, “Sora values friendship over everything, and friends treat each other like equals. That’s what mutual respect is all about. You respect the other person and yourself at the same time. That’s my brotherly advice, for what it’s worth.”

Exquisite. It was as if Riku hadn’t confessed a weird thing at all. Was this Vanitas’ way of apology, in the same way that Riku’s ill thought confession must have been a plea for forgiveness? 

“It takes trust. You’ve got to believe that the other person will look after you just as much as you want to look after them. Knowing Sora, he’d walk through fire if he knew it would save a friend from hurting. But he’s thick as two short planks, so don’t make him read your mind. He will fail.”

“Very true,” Riku mumbled to himself, imagining Sora’s vapid, brilliant white grin with a smile. 

They walked in silence until the venue emptied before them like a split treasure chest laden with carbuncles of amps and strobe lights, shackles of wire and black metal posts, and planks drilled into the shapes of stages and doorways guarded by aubergine curtains that swiped back and forth, emptying and receiving men and women in black with ear pieces and equipment. Vanitas and Riku were coming at it from the back, just barely aware of the hordes of screaming attendees on the stage’s other sides.

“Right, so, 3B. Look for a big 3B.”

“Not Furby?”

“Wow, Riku, you’re so funny.”

Riku was pretty sure Vanitas would die of sarcasm someday. Snickering, he used his slightly-still-baked vision to scour out the elusive 3B, swearing when Vanitas found it first. It was the third stage down, and B was the trailer closest, practically swinging back and forth on its wheels with all the noise and activity rumbling inside. The closer Riku got, the more his anxiety wiggled at his toes. “You got any more weed?” He asked Vanitas, who snorted flatly, “no.”

“I bet you do.”

“I smoked everything in my jacket pocket, Ri. Rest is in my car.”

“Liar,” Riku snapped, ducking for Vanitas’ pocket and whining when the man held him back by the wrists. Having his arms pinned up, even in midair, was making Riku kind of hot under the collar. Should he admit that feeling to Vanitas? Try out that “authenticity” thing the man had been so adamant about?

“Would I say this if I were sober?” He whispered to himself, shocked when Vanitas helpfully replied, “no, you would not.”

“Wow, mind reader.”

“Elementary, Watson. I’m just the Sherlock Holmes of induction.”

“I thought induction stoves were the Sherlock Holmes of induction.” 

“Technically Sherlock Holmes is the Sherlock Holmes of induction.”

“What are we talking about?”

“I have no idea.” A beat. Then, unhelpfully: “I’m a good listener is what I was trying to say.”

Lost, both of them trudged towards the chain link fence guarding the trailers and hopped over it one by one.

When a bouncer noticed their approach and trotted towards them with hand to ear piece at the ready, Vanitas stopped him with the word, “Lexaeus!”

“Van?” The bouncer whispered in befuddlement, staring from the chain link fence to the stage as though they might converge before his eyes. “Are you performing?”

“No, I’m here to visit one of the bands.”

“You can’t just hop the fence without a pass!”

“Lex, I’m too fucking high to reach the entrance. Cut me some slack, it’s trailer 3B. Salt Ice Triad or whatever the fuck. Roxas Strife’s the lead singer.”

The bouncer’s face froze in realization before scrunching in self-satisfaction. With waggling finger, he chuckled, “that kid with him is your brother, isn’t he? I knew he looked familiar! The last name confused me.”

“Sora took his mom’s last name,” Vanitas abbreviated, bulldozing on, “I just want to pass him a message and I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Why don’t you find Skuld?” The bouncer asked, pointing over his shoulder and reaching for Vanitas’ arm. “She was here seconds ago; I’ll get her to slip you a VIP pass.”

“I’ll talk to her, Lex,” Vanitas ensured with a seraphic beam. “Just let me catch Sora first-”

“Vanitas!” Roared a voice from one of the curtains behind stage.

“Oh, fuck me,” Vanitas swore, shoving his hands in his pockets and donning another sweet smile. “Larxene!”

Stalking towards them with electric green doll eyes and slicked back brass blond hair was the 90s interpretation of Debbie Harry: all sharp lines, angry black and whites, and denim and leather from her cropped cotton jacket to her clunky black cowboy boots over leather trousers, pants so low that her pubic bone threatened to pop out every moment she walked. 

“Where were you?” She demanded, letting a nipple slip from the barely buttoned jacket when she threw out both arms. 

“Where was I when?” Vanitas nettled, regretting such impudence immediately when she dug her finger into his chest and launched into a cacophonous account of everything going on in her life for the past week. 

“And I said he wants so badly to play lead guitar and I had a girl with the perfect solo for you...”

“Yes, I know, _I know_ ,” Vanitas tried with valiance, taking her hands gently in his palms and dancing around on his tiptoes from the effort needed to get a word in edge ways. 

Larxene was inveterate in her accusations, so much so that Riku lost interest in her holding Vanitas hostage and stalked towards the trailer marked 3B on his own. Trudging up the metal foldout steps, he listened for a moment to the sound of laughter and muffled conversation, noting the now familiar smell of grass and booze. Fried food hit his nostrils, too, and he wondered if something was cooking inside. 

Thoughtlessly, he wrapped on the door and waited, wrapping again when there was no answer. Laughter burst and he wrapped harder. Then brief silence and footsteps, until the door opened and he stood face to face with Roxas, just as beautiful as he had been that morning yet with a distinct pinkness to his eyes. The bohemian swagger of his hips turned criminal as they lounged against the doorframe’s right side, relegating his bare shoulders and sweaty head to the left.

“Hey, Riku,” he winked, holding out his arms. “Welcome.”

Was he expecting a hug?

Riku fumbled into the boy’s embrace, patting his back and jolting when Roxas squeezed his shoulder and pulled away just enough to sigh into his mouth, “so happy to see you.” Did Riku smell as smashed as he sounded, too?

“Do you have any coffee?” the silveret growled in his burliest, least-high voice possible. 

“No, but we have shots,” Roxas responded, sending a big white grin Riku’s way.

It was then that Riku noticed how sweaty Roxas was, finding it a wonder he’d managed to hug the blond at all without shooting him through the air like a squeezed goldfish. The roots of every static puffed blond lock were dripping, and what must have once been eyeliner was now oozing down his cheeks in sooty swaths. Again, he wore nothing but a chain necklace, linen shorts, and dollar store sandals, although the amount of sharpie coating his torso could’ve passed for a top. Inked phrases such as _fuck me till I explode_ , _these nipples belong to Dana Mae_ , and _Roxas Strife is mine, mine, mine, mine so sexy please kill me_ stood out the fastest, but the _I like chunky Cheetos_ scribbled in tiny block letters along the line of pubic hair leading to the bulge between Roxas’ linen clad, bright red legs was the surprise star of the night. 

“You look like a big black cherry,” Riku breathed, elucidating upon Roxas’ ensuing baffled look, “I mean with the sharpie and your legs being all red.”

“It’s the latex, man,” Roxas evinced, beckoning for Riku to come in as he continued, “I’m so fucking hot right now I could toast bread.”

“Heh heh,” came a distinctly Sora-ish giggle to Riku’s right.

When Riku stumbled inside and looked into the trailer’s back end, he was faced with a brunette, bronzed angel sprawled half naked on a fold out couch. Two oil slick, topless fiends, one a petite woman with deceptively young features, carbon blue irises, and a barbed nose ring, and the other an all-limbs creature with an alarming crimson mane, both armed with drinks and the man with a cigarette, laid watch over him.

“Sora!” Riku cried out, leaping to Sora’s rescue before being cruelly taken down by a stray pair of jeans rolled on the floor. When he realized they were Sora’s, he grimaced at the boy in betrayal. 

“Oh, come on, Riku!” Sora barked, covering himself with a blanket in embarrassment. “I was freaking hot, too!”

Roxas stepped over Riku’s shoulder without a bother, plopping beside Sora and putting his arm around the boy in the process. The gesture was physically injurious to Riku, who had never felt so lucid so fast. 

“Riku, Axel and Xion, Xion and Axel, Riku,” Roxas introduced, gaining a nod from the guy and a grunt from the girl. 

Riku would have returned the hello, but Roxas pushing Sora upright on the pretext of searching for something behind his back rendered him speechless. When Sora snuggled back against Roxas’ hand still suspiciously hidden behind the blanket, Riku’s stomach threatened to eject the breakfast burritos Vanitas had purchased earlier on. That, coupled with the fact that no matter where Riku turned, erect nipples assailed his line of sight, was almost as strong as Ipecac.

“Sorry,” Xion said in a distinctly guiltless tone. “Do boobs scare you? I’d say I can put on a bra, but I don’t believe in them.”

Riku failed to see the logic in denying the existence of something literally sitting right in front of one’s feet, but hey ho. 

“Latex is kind of our thing,” the spidery redhead apologized, stretching out his bare, pale legs and tatted arms before heading for the mini bar in nothing but translucent white briefs. “What are you feeling?”

Riku realized Xion was not just wearing “just underwear,” but men’s underwear, when she hopped up to pull a cooler his way. When Riku leaned forward to open it, she held him back and snorted, “dude, this is the seat. Axel will get your drink from the bar.”

“Axel,” Riku breathed in stupefaction, missing the cooler and almost falling down the couch side. After the cooler was given up, room on the couch was found, and Riku squeezed into Sora’s side, feeling the brunet’s bare silhouette beneath his swaddled blankets, a beer was placed in his hand and the redhead patted his back before squeezing into his side, too. Now the couch sported four sweaty humans, which was four too many. 

“So, you’re Sora’s elementary school bud?” The crimson spider asked, sipping at a beer as Riku cradled his own like an antediluvian relic. 

“Best friend,” Riku swallowed, staring at his beer’s rim before forcing a mechanic swig. “Since kindergarten, actually.”

“That’s sweet,” Xion cooed, lighting a blunt and passing it Riku’s way. Riku took that, too, hoping it would do something for his returning nerves.

When the blunt passed to Sora and he refused it with a blush, Roxas’ hand reappeared to rub his shoulder as the boy snuggled against his side. 

Riku stared at the display like a statue, attempting with little success to catch Sora’s eye.

“Sure you don’t want to shed the jeans?” Axel piqued, gaze leaping from Riku’s legs to eyes with raised brows. “We’re total nudists, especially in concert weather.” The stealth with which he traversed Riku’s shoulder with his long, lithe arm would have impressed the silveret had the limb not set up camp over the back of his neck. 

“Riku’s not,” Roxas retorted, cinching Sora under his chin like a puppy. “Remember how I was telling you about him on the way up?”

 _Telling_ about him? 

Just when Riku grew worried that Axel or the couch might absorb him, the trailer door cleaved open and Vanitas burst inside, chattering so loud that no one noticed when Riku wiggled out of Axel’s grasp for the bar. 

“Axel, how are your peeps?” Larxene snapped in the midst of Riku’s escape, stomping down the caravan and inadvertently herding him back to the couch where Axel draped over him with twice the fervor. Though she handed everyone another beer, her eyes remained trained on the redhead.

Ah. So, Xion was the girl and Axel was the boy. Now Riku’s mind was beginning to piece everything together.

When the Sea Salt Trio caught sight of Vanitas, all three of them stood as if zapped with cattle prods, with Axel sailing over, taking Vanitas by the shoulders, and shaking the stuffing out of him. The view of Vanitas’ stunned head rolling back and forth, best experienced from Riku’s enlarged spot on the couch, was priceless. 

“Dude!” Axel cried. “I had a fucking feeling Sora was related to you, but now I know for sure!”

For his bohemian languor, Roxas could be surprisingly punctilious when inspired. Wiping the remainder of the eyeliner from his cheeks and peeling the sweatiest hairs from his forehead, he nodded towards Vanitas and accepted the man’s hand when given it, murmuring a honeyed, “nice to meet you,” with a nod.

If sycophancy were a contest, Roxas and Vanitas would tie for first place. They practically oozed over each other with dewy grins, husky chuckles, and heavy gazes while saying zero words of value. All the while, the spidery redhead, Axel, crawled around the both of them with the same hopping motions Vanitas had used on Larxene earlier on.

“Dude, your first garage band, Unversed Hearse? Fucking got me into the game, man!” The spider squeaked, drawing Vanitas’ attention enough for the ravenet to snort, “what a sad origin story.”

“Me?” Axel breathed in befuddlement. 

“Both of us,” Vanitas retorted. “Unversed Hearse was trash.”

“I wore your album out, man. I masturbated to your bass line.”

“Axel!” Roxas cried in embarrassment. The reaction was the sharpest Riku had ever seen from the blond, and thus, to his mind, the most genuine. When he noticed how well the green of Roxas’ nipple piercing matched the green of Axel’s eyes, he thought he knew why.

“There’s no need to be jealous, Rox,” Riku drawled, placing his hand around Sora’s emancipated shoulder and puffing up with a spark of his usual bravado to add, “music is a whole different type of seduction.”

“Oh?” Xion noted, cocking her head like a blackened cherub in the corner. “You a musician as well?”

“I played piano,” Riku retorted with a shrug. “Went to state. Scouted by a few colleges.” The ominous slur on the word ‘scouted’ told him the two beers and blunt were putting him back in the game. If only his stomach would stop growling. 

“Is that what you study?” Roxas asked, resuming the coolness of tone from when he had first met Riku through his bedroom window.

“Nah,” Riku responded, donning a dour expression to murmur, “couldn’t really tie myself down to one thing.” 

Unfortunately, Riku was the only person present who failed to catch the roll of Sora’s eyes.

Roxas’ fist remained against his cheek as he curled up against the edge of the pullout opposite to Sora and Riku, a bronze, blue pooled island stripped from its mainland. Only his toes reached Sora’s body, tapping against his thigh through the blanket.

When Riku slithered his arm tighter around Sora’s shoulder, Sora loosened his thigh through the folds and let it touch the pad of Roxas’ foot.

“I was fucking hopeless in school,” Axel lamented. “What’s that saying about idle hands?” His body swayed from side to side, at turns pointing to Riku, and at others leaning towards Vanitas, with his palms following in static swirls like he couldn’t decide where to go. When Vanitas parked himself on the cooler, Axel settled for Riku, diving back into his side until they were practically in each other’s lap, the distance between them made scarcer by Sora’s cruel, splayed dominion over the couch’s center quarter.

Having a stranger’s beer breath blowing down his neck and Sora’s knee shoved into his side wasn’t Riku’s idea of a fun evening, especially once the crimson spider’s hand resumed its odyssey down his back. 

“Axel was a pyromaniac,” Xion confided to Riku, shooting Axel an inscrutable look that seemed to still his wandering fingers. 

“Sweet,” Riku said in thoughtless appreciation. 

“I thought you got mad at me for being a troublemaker earlier on, Riku,” Vanitas scolded from the bar, palliating the tension. “He and Tifa were ganging up on me!” His ebullient voice stung.

Downing his third beer in one tenacious gulp, Riku snapped, “I wasn’t mad at all. You were the one who seemed embarrassed.” Hearts, it was hot in here. Why was he seeing two of everyone? 

“What did you do?” A shrill voice shot through the air, making Riku’s eyes water from the vibrations. Must have been Larxene. She was too far away for Riku to make her out. 

“Vandalism and stuff,” Vanitas mumbled, abbreviating, “anyway, you know all this shit, Larxene.”

“But Axel doesn’t!”

“I did stuff, too,” Riku interjected, startled by the petulance glimmering between each word.

“Riku!” Sora whispered, taking Riku’s hand and setting his wide eyes fully against him for the first time that night. Their directness was so hypnotizing that for a moment, Riku remembered how hard he had worked to keep his record to himself. Only for a moment, though. Then his vertigo turned Sora into a blue salted pretzel. 

“I had an officer round the house a few times,” the silveret whisper shouted. 

“That means you got caught.” Axel.

“There was stuff I wasn’t caught for.”

“Delinquency is pitiful, in my opinion.” Roxas. “Total cry for attention.”

“Who’s crying for attention?” Xion, barbed. Something must have hit a nerve. 

“Kingdom Hearts,” blustered the blue salted pretzel, discomforted hands curling around in swirls where a head of brown hair should have been. 

Two startling citrine irises amongst a swath of black shot grave, private glares between everyone, twisting its fingers in knots before centering on the moistness entering Sora’s eyes. “Roxas is right,” thick lips beneath the eyes murmured. Despite its apparent inebriation and torpid sighs, the voice remained incisive. “The joke writes itself. Delinquency is the kid who scribbles on the wall because he doesn’t have paper.”

“But the paper is establishment!” The crimson spider doled, and everyone laughed, including Riku in nervous yelps.

“The minute I found songwriting, and I mean really found it, and dived into guitar, delinquency was over. It was a waste of time.”

“Totally,” Roxas shot back in ardor. “Singing is my fucking passion. Why would I waste practice time by being a public nuisance? Blowing off steam is what sex is for.”

There was a thunderous round of applause, and Riku felt phantom hands slide to the base of his spine. 

“You’ve got to keep some healthy rebellion,” Vanitas retorted. “Gotta know what you’re singing about. I guess your purpose is your purpose, though.”

“Blowing off steam is his purpose,” Axel hissed, slipping out his tongue close enough for it to bend the hairs on Riku’s cheek.

“Fuck you,” Roxas snapped when Axel cackled, pointing when Vanitas’ searchlight eyes widened and saying, “this is the past boyfriend I have a remembrance of.”

“He never got a remembrance of me,” Xion confided through the side of her mouth, making Sora’s salted pretzel head whip towards Roxas in shock.

Roxas, now a full sea of red in sweaty linen, stuttered and groused until breaking, “I do have a remembrance of you.”

“No!”

“Is that the...” Sora started, trailing off and morphing into his blanket after realizing Vanitas and Riku were still there.

“No Sora,” Roxas responded, voice shackled with embarrassment. “Xion’s the earring. Not the...”

“Now I remember the one you’re talking about,” Xion giggled. “That was a crazy night.”

Before Riku could demand elucidation, Larxene yelled something unintelligible and fired out the caravan door.

The chill that followed, as well as the booming roar rippling from the mainstage, told Riku she had left it the portal open. If he concentrated hard enough, he could see its exposed sound waves barreling towards him like a tsunami, multiplying his world in a kaleidoscope of yellow and turquoise glimmers that forced his stomach into cartwheels. 

“Put on your clothes, you little shits,” Larxene shrieked in ebullience from outside. “They want an encore!”

“Encore?” Riku swallowed, wilting as everyone including Sora sprung up to fetch their clothes. In minutes, the Sea Salt Trio was gone, and somehow, Sora, Vanitas, and Riku were left in the caravan alone, with Vanitas blocking Sora’s way to the door. 

“Shove off, Vanitas!” The brunet squeaked, barreling against him to no avail. “I don’t want to miss my song!”

“Tell me one thing, Sora. Why the fuck were you in your underwear when I came in?”

“I told Riku earlier I was hot-“

“That’s no excuse to spread out in your briefs in a random camper van. You’ve known these guys for one fucking day-“

“Vanitas, stop!” Sora begged in a low voice, savaging through another escape attempt as Vanitas drawled, “just saying that I hope you didn’t show off your balls to Xion and Axel on accident-”

“Vanitas!”

“Sora, you’re going to miss the encore!” Called Larxene’s voice.

As she reentered the camper, Sora took the opportunity to flee, disappearing into the night as the music started up again. With the door closed, it was just Riku, Larxene, and Vanitas, Riku remaining seated as Larxene and Vanitas straddled the kitchen section. 

“Pizza and fried chicken,” Larxene’s voice commented, loopy finger hovering towards the food Riku had smelled earlier before clawing a piece and putting it to where her lips must have been. “Cold, but good.”

“Might want to close your mouth while you chew,” Vanitas sneered, gaining a middle finger before cooing, “do you have that VIP pass for Riku?” 

“I’m okay,” Riku garbled, clutching his stomach with one hand and a free ear with the other. His vision swam in waves, and now his guts were following. Pain like knives prickled its way up his sides.

“I insist,” Larxene mushed in more command than request, swallowing her food and slaking it with beer. “Any friend of Vanitas’ is a friend of mine.”

“I’m not Vanitas’ friend,” Riku snapped, wincing his eyes shut through a chasm of nausea. “I’m Sora’s.”

Larxene brooked a meaningful pause to mutter, “Well, I got the fucking pass and it’s there for you. It’s not like they grow on trees.”

“Do you have any Pepto-Bismol?”

Greater silence conquered as Larxene and Vanitas glanced Riku’s way. Moments later, the weasel’s hand was gripping Riku’s shoulder and Larxene was hissing with mouth still full of food, “is he going to puke?”

“I need a bathroom,” Riku interjected, letting Vanitas scramble him up. 

“Shit, he’s actually green.”

“Just show me to the fucking bathroom, Larxene.”

“Fair warning, I’m not cleaning some rando’s puke off that bathroom, and I’m not emptying it from the tank later. Axel already took a shit, so the golden ticket for fucking up the pipes has already passed.”

“Oh hearts,” Riku moaned, diving for the doorway and leaning out of it just soon enough to projectile vomit down the steps. 

“Fuck!” Vanitas yelped, grabbing Riku’s arms before the silveret could pitch face first into the grass. As Larxene took over his torso, Vanitas supported his buckling legs.

“Dickbags, get him out of here!” Larxene roared, and to the best of their ability the trio slid down the bile slick steps to sweet verdant soil. As Larxene spat about how lucky Vanitas was she hadn’t slipped, whooping voices boomed from the stage again.

“Shit, Riku, I’m going to take you home,” Vanitas warbled over his shoulder, searching the perimeter for signs of Sora. “But first I’ve got to find my fucking brother…” 

“No, don’t let him see me like this!” Riku choked, pointing himself away from Vanitas and projectile vomiting again. 

“Riku, I can’t leave him here alone!” Vanitas snarled. “Let go of your pride! You were in diapers together for Heart’s sake!”

This time, Riku lost his aim and Vanitas had to leap aside to avoid getting sprayed in the face. On the next heave, when Riku came up dry, Vanitas rubbed his back and called Larxene for a bottle of water. As she and Vanitas buffeted back and forth over what to do, a sinking sensation between Riku’s legs told him that his worst nightmare was about to come to fruition. First had come the awkward confessions, then the chunks, and now...

“Get me behind the trailer,” Riku swallowed in horror. When Vanitas clutched him and bent closer in befuddlement, Riku wrenched him down by his leather jacket, grabbed his jaw in his hand, and bellowed into his ear, “get me behind the fucking trailer NOW!”

Vanitas obeyed, hoisting Riku up with surprising care and shepherding him to the camper’s darkened rear. As he leaned Riku against the wall and blustered something unintelligible Larxene’s way, Riku stripped himself of his denim jacket, sweater, and Cloud’s tragic olive top, shoved down his pants, squatted, and let slip the last of his dignity just as Vanitas came to check on him.

“Hey, Ri- holy FUCK!”

Riku was too sick to be ashamed of what happened next. All he could hope was for Vanitas to keep Sora away as promised, and that all the booze would make him forget the night’s worst come tomorrow morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you look closely at your screens after reaching the end of this chapter, you just might see the shockwaves of second hand embarrassment emanating from the text on Riku's behalf. 
> 
> Edited quickly before posting so please excuse any mistakes. Not sure when the next chapter will come but all the ideas are concrete in my mind.


	4. Lust for Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Riku attempts to convince Sora he has other friends and everything just gets worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kind kudos and compliments. I love hearing what you all think. And no... Riku's descent to rock bottom is still not complete. Enjoy.

Pinned on all sides by slim fitting denim, Riku felt like a Boleyn on the chopping block, read his crimes by some desiccated clergy member before the executioner asked him his last words.

"Any last words, Riku?"

"What?" He croaked, clutching a loose pair of pants to his quivering throat.

Naminé, a classmate and member of his honor society, entire body permeated by a fatuous grin, gesticulated towards an open dressing room door guarding the next department over. "Prepare to be amazed," she whispered with an ominous wiggle in her brows.

Zexion, another classmate and fellow honor society member, waddled out of the dressing rooms in a pair of cut up white jeans and a black muscle top depicting some hippie haired, crazy eyed rock band frontman.

When Riku read the chicken scratch inscription on the shirt’s base, “Some Like It RED HOT!” He realized it must have depicted a young, stock photo Anthony Keidis. As his train of thought chugged from Anthony’s pouty lips and sharp chin to Vanitas’ equally sharp but better balanced jawline, and finally to bodega burritos and the noxious scent of lemon balm and vomit, he shut the mental movie theatre down and coughed until his throat hurt more than his stomach.

Naminé and Zexion cackled. Then Zexion waddled back to the dressing room and changed with Naminé chattering behind. Riku respected the brief moment of silence left in their wake by checking his phone. Still no texts from Sora, but Riku would not soon forget the call they had shared the morning after the horrendous concert debacle.

_Hey, Riku! Just calling to see if you got home safe. Vanitas chewed me out about leaving you behind and letting you throw up and poop behind the caravan all on your own._

_Kingdom Hearts, Sora, that never happened._

_It clearly happened, Riku. We had to hose down the steps and grass. It was gross. What happened?_

_I don’t know, some drunk bum tried busting into the caravan and I stopped him, but he got me in the eye and before he could sock me real good I punched his stomach and he blew chunks. Must have shit behind the trailer in revenge._

_Ha ha, Riku. Larxene told us the whole thing and Vanitas repeated it when he was chewing me out. There’s no shame in getting sick, quit playing the hero._

_I’m not playing hero, Sora, your new buddies and deadbeat brother are just liars. I would never let something like that happen to me, no matter how sick or drunk I let myself get._

_Whatever, Riku. The next time I see you, you better have a black eye. Otherwise I’ll start calling you Pooh Bear._

_Fuck you, Sora! You’re not going to see me with a bruise because I don’t feel like seeing you! Forget getting in contact with me for the next two weeks, because I won’t answer._

_Hearts, Riku, it was a joke! Lighten up, you’re so serious these days._

_I just don’t like your dip-shit sibling spreading lies about me._

_Stop calling my brother names, I’m fed up with you dissing him! Only family disses family._

_Whatever, Sora. See you in two weeks if I feel like it._

_Whatever._

_Bye._

_Bye._

Yes, Riku had been a complete dumb ass, but in his defense it was mostly the hangover and food poisoning talking. He was bedridden for the next two days shooting noxious substances from both ends and crying about how disgusting he was. It took three aspirins, two frigid showers, and infinite stores of willpower to drag himself to school the following Monday. The remainder of that week was a fever dream of rushing to the bathroom at any available moment, suckling a bottle filled with water from the honor society office’s Britta filter, and multiple packets of electrolytes and trying not to eat anything but plain toast and rice porridge made by his mother. By the following Wednesday, he had lost ten pounds. By the following following Monday, he had lost fifteen. Then, by the grace of Kingdom Hearts, he conquered the fog of food poisoning and mustered up the courage to stomach real food again.

This was not smart. After ejecting a lovely burger (also made by his well meaning mother) twenty minutes after ingesting it, he decided that duck food was the way to go for the foreseeable future. Now, on the second Friday following the concert, he was twenty pounds lighter, colorless, exhausted, limp as a soggy biscuit, infuriated by everything, and interminably starving. He was also pretending to be friends with two random schoolmates to stop himself from begging Sora for forgiveness or call bombing Roxas and Vanitas to tell them how much he wanted to drive them both off a steep cliff.

"Oh my Hearts!" One of his classmates squawked from the fitting room. Riku rolled his eyes at their insipid shenanigans and accidentally turned on his selfie camera, moaning in horror as he caught sight of himself. Once his cellular device was safely relegated to his pocket, he wandered towards the makeup counter and asked one of the ladies to match his skin tone.

"I’m not sure we have one that white," she apologized.

"That’s fine," Riku drawled sardonically. "If you have some spare clown makeup that’ll do just fine. I just want blush." 

Sighing, the lady corrected Riku’s under eye bags, rouged his cheeks and lips, and glossed him with some highlighter. After a mumbled thanks, he returned to the denim rack by the fitting room and tried to drown out the sound of his "friends'" cacophonous laughter.

This kind of carousing was rare for the pair, who, combined, uttered downwards of twenty words a day. Zexion was a shy boy-man and recovering emo with a mop of steel blue hair, gage holes as well as the shadows of old facial piercings marring his babyish looks, and a revolving wardrobe of black, grey, white, and more black in the form of skinny jeans, skater tees, and baggy pullovers and hoodies. Vans were the only shoes he trusted, but he was attempting to evolve. Hence the trip to the mall, which Riku had volunteered to commandeer because the pair were always begging to hang out with him and he had no one else to talk to right now. Naminé was a petite, diaphanous blond with sapphire blue eyes and a penchant for wearing tiny white H&M dresses despite holing herself in the community college’s visual art department for the majority of each school week. Until recently, Riku had considered her mute. For some reason, the more Riku hung out with them, the more glib they became, as if they relished his company. It was annoying. After all, Riku was just faking their friendship to fill Sora’s Kingstagram with images of how much fun the silveret was having without him. He’d post the pictures tonight with a well oiled caption and hashtags.

When a little flaxen headed boy passed by with a popsicle in hand, Riku’s mind pinged back to Roxas. The termite had attempted calling him two nights after the concert. Riku let it ring until the call dropped, just to fuck around. Judging by Cloud’s following interminable voicemail (yes, Riku had listened to that one) about how there was no shame in what had happened, how bad Roxas felt about the whole thing, that the Strife family and Tifa would always be there for Riku, and most importantly, that it wasn’t necessary to return the jeans and t shirt, only incensed Riku more.

Return them? Riku had incinerated the garments with pure bleach as soon as he got the chance. The fetid remains were now buried three feet down somewhere in his mother’s backyard. Just picturing the burial plot made Riku so sick with shame that he could barely keep from bursting into tears. I mean he, and they, and it, and the caravan, and the grass, and the burritos, and the...

"Jeans are over," Riku imputed, banishing the denim he had retrieved earlier to the back of the bargain rack and instead stalking for the bomber jackets across the fitting room entrance.

Jeans? Out. V-neck t-shirts? Gag. Woolen turtlenecks? Fisherman, who? Refurbished, vintage denim jackets? Fuck you, Vanitas. Riku was Street Style, now. Casual. Strong silhouette. Capacious. A coterie of bourgeoisie, blue collar, hip hop, and pure cool. And cool? Riku could do cool all day. Hip hop? Riku ate hip hop for breakfast. Strong silhouette?

This bomber jacket was five hundred dollars, so maybe not _that_ strong a silhouette. Its beauty was undeniable: butter soft leather trim, shearling interior, (Riku would never touch wool again, but a leather jacket lined with shearling was far enough away from the turtleneck he had worn to the concert to be acceptable), well tailored, with an excellent smell. Real mature.

Riku took a mental jaunt through his closet to find a suitable substitute, coming up empty until aborting the mission when Naminé and Zexion rejoined him. "Wait," he barked as they turned for the store exit, grabbing the jacket and foraging for some decent boots and pants.

"What’s up, Riku?" Naminé asked, following Riku’s movements with darting eyes.

"Can we all dress up?" Riku pleaded, swiping stuff for Zexion and Naminé, too. When he slipped out his phone, they understood.

"Zexion’s resident techie, let him set up the camera," Naminé demanded in a far more authoritarian tone than usual, fleeing to the fitting room with Riku and Zexion shuffling behind. Once accoutered, they arranged themselves within walking distance of the mall entrance and Naminé snapped the pics, posing each of them to the best of her artistic ability. When Riku spotted the photos, his heart softened.

Turned out Zexion and Naminé were more than Macguffins. They appeared to possess... applicable skills. 

"These look good," Riku conceded, inspiring a smirk between his companions.

"Everyone’s got to have a kingsta friend."

"A what?"

"A digital hype man," Zexion explained, backing up and taking a water bottle out of his backpack, much to the chagrin of a security guard now feet away. "Snap me," he sang, taking a deep breath, shaking out the nerves, and finding a suitable, _'oh, silly Naminé! Taking a candid pic while I’m trying to stay hydrated'_ pose. It took several tries to get right, but the resulting picture (edited by Naminé’s lithe fingers) was wonderful.

"Now me!" Naminé begged, sprinting into position. Riku watched as Zexion took several snaps, marveling at the camaraderie between the pair. Call it close proximity, but Riku had never realized how close the two were when they were mere classmates.

"What do you think, Riku?" Naminé cooed, scooting close enough to touch his shoulder as Zexion brooked his other. Riku had had the feeling the two of them had had a crush on him for quite some time. While saddling two hot, talented friends was a nice flex, it was even nicer when they vied for Riku’s attention.

"I just hope she likes it," Zexion sighed, almost pitching himself into Riku’s embrace.

"Wait, she?" Riku mused, putting his hand around Zexion’s shoulder. He had to admit, the blue mop headed boy was one of the cutest he had ever met. It must have been his diffidence and tragic fashion sense preventing him from bagging a boyfriend.

"This girl Zexion’s into," Naminé disclosed. "Met her last week and can’t stop thinking about her."

"She’s so hot," Zexion extolled, clenching his teeth and shutting his eyes as though to keep himself from spontaneously cumming all over the mall. Somnolence dropped his voice to a whisper, ensnaring him in a prurient daydream that branded his cheeks and shook him from head to toe. The splash of red staining his once pale features accentuated the bags under his eyes. Poor kid must have had a nonstop jack fest ever since he met the girl. Being well acquainted with such feelings, Riku could commiserate. There was just one detail nettling his brain.

"Didn’t you say you were gay?" The silveret intimated in the most inculpable way possible.

Zexion narrowly avoided a face plant.

"Gay?" Naminé balked.

Riku regretted his guile immediately. "Maybe I’m thinking of someone else," he emended in a stutter, but the damage had already been done.

Naminé, sanguine as ever, stifled a giggle, while Zexion rolled his eyes and refuted, "I’m straight, Riku." 

"Not even a little bi?"

Zexion’s ensuing expression asked why Riku kept prattling, and truly, Riku had to ask himself the same question.

"Do I look gay, or something?" Zexion impugned.

Riku’s cheeks combusted as he expiated, "no, no, I mean, I just heard from someone else-"

"Do you like him, Riku?" Naminé surmised, stupefying Riku into silence.

"No, of course not, I-"

The radiant realization conquering Zexion’s acrimony was an arrow pointed straight at Riku’s head. What could protect him from these strangers’ careless assumptions? The truth? What he wanted to be the truth? "I have a boyfriend, guys," he blathered, but the revelation did little to abate Zexion and Naminé’s consonant glee.

"That doesn’t mean you don’t like Zexion-"

"Oh, come on, my boyfriend’s way hotter than Zexion! No offense, I just thought seeing both of you in LGBTQ officer positions, I figured Zexion was queer and you were his straight friend, I’m sorry for stereotyping you guys-"

"Wait, you think _I’m_ the straight best friend?" Naminé gasped.

After a lavish pause, Riku stumbled, "I... yeah?"

Naminé and Zexion’s laughter grew more ebullient than Riku thought possible.

"What?" He snapped, upset flushing his cheeks deeper. "What’s so funny?"

"This is why I don’t have a girlfriend," Naminé sighed as she clung to Zexion’s arm.

"This is why _I_ don’t have a girlfriend," Zexion retorted, causing Naminé to grin wider.

After another duel of cackling, the pair calmed and asked if Riku was hungry yet. The silveret could muster little more than a shrug in reply, and after changing back into their normal clothes, the trio cavorted (well, Zexion and Naminé cavorted, Riku more so dragged his feet high enough to carve distance) to the food court, opting for Sbarro’s. Riku teetered between them as pointless and ridiculous as a broken lawn gnome, selecting an Italian dressed salad to complement their stack of pizza slices and milkshakes. Each of their saccharine steps or shared gestures was an affront. Riku buried his head in his phone to avoid looking at them.

"So who’s your boyfriend, Riku?" Zexion inquired in a tone ominously consonant to Vanitas and Cloud’s pity voices.

"Yeah!" Naminé goaded. "You said he’s super cute."

Somehow, Riku’s fingers carried him to Kingstagram. Biting his thumb and narrowing his eyes, he hovered over the story bubble with Sora’s name. Then, clicking on the boy’s profile, he swiveled his phone around and pushed it Naminé’s way. Her and Zexion’s heads tapped as they poured over the profile, emitting discordant oohs and ahs for the two minutes it took to appraise its entirety. When they swiped up to Sora’s latest pictures, their lips pursed and eyes bugged, taking turns gazing Riku’s way as though he wouldn’t notice their discomfort.

"What?" The silveret demanded, sweat pricking his armpits.

Zexion and Naminé peered at each other under their lashes. Then, smiling, their gaze redirected.

"So how long have you two been lucky in love?" Naminé inquired, which Zexion asserted with, "take my straight opinion as you will, but you guys make a cute couple."

Fluttering inside, Riku relaxed just enough to shrug, "we’ve been friends since diapers and on and off for the past few years. His parents are totally crazy, though, so we’ve had to keep things on the down low. I’m chill and it’s better that we don’t get serious while we’re both trying to educate ourselves and shit. Romantic pressure on top of school work sucks, you know?"

Sure, Riku got the pair’s sexualities switched, but one thing he knew for certain was that neither of them had dated, so wouldn’t question any of the intricate lies he was pulling out of his ass.

"I can’t believe he’s friends with Roxas," Zexion reflected, drawing a nod from Naminé as she clamored, "small world, huh?"

"Wait," Riku stopped, "you guys know Roxas?"

"What?"

Zexion blushed, shrinking in his seat and disappearing behind a sheet of slate blue hair. "Well, you know, we were band buddies in junior high..."

"Oh, yeah," Naminé dangled in a grand voice, glee wiggling her torso so hard her chair whined beneath her. "Just a bunch of hunky heterosexual buddies. No homo, no homo, no homo, bro!"

Zexion's ensuing expression was one of supreme exasperation. "You know you're doing nothing for my straight reputation, right?"

When Riku looked on dumbly and Naminé bored into the side of Zexion's kerfuffled head with laser-beam eyes, the blue haired man groaned, tore his locks away from his face, and swallowed, "You know how I said I'm totally not into guys?"

"You lied," Riku conceded.

"No!" Zexion squeaked. "I was just horny and... a little curious in junior high. A lot of people assumed I was gay and I couldn’t get a girlfriend and Roxas liked me..."

"He did?"

"Don’t act like it’s such a surprise!" Zexion berated, purple with embarrassment. "I may not be your type, Riku, but I’ve gotten enough action to know I’m pretty cool!"

The fuck? Was everyone in the world fucking bar Riku? Even total nerds like Zexion and Naminé?

"At least that makes one of us," Naminé reflected with a morose sigh, making Riku feel a little bit better.

"We met in band class and used to skip a lot. We boned in the practice rooms a bunch cause they were soundproof." 

"Bottom or top?" Riku inquired, nosiness having razed his sense of decency long ago.

"Buh-well, I mean, I-duh, d- does it matter?"

"Oh my Hearts, Zex!" Naminé decried. "Roxas stole your back door virginity?"

"Shut up, Nami, it’s a free country!"

"Can you really call yourself straight if you took it-"

"Though I enjoyed the sensations," Zexion evinced, "I would rather do it with a lady. We broke up because I didn’t want to go out with a guy anymore. Roxas was really sweet about it. I was a total dick because I was embarrassed, cause he was really good and I was confused about my feelings. I never talked to him again."

"You homophobe!"

"For the love of Kingdom Hearts, shut up, Naminé!"

"Wait, how long ago was this?" Riku demanded.

"Um..." Zexion reflected, "eighth grade?"

"Eighth grade?" Riku boomed, sending several people flying from the tables surrounding.

"We were both fourteen, cause that was the birthday he came out... boned for like, the entire summer until my fifteenth birthday, cause not long after that I think I fucked a girl for the first time-"

"You think?"

"Shut up, Nami, you know what I mean. I’m just trying to verify the dates. Anyway, then I realized I liked girls. Doesn’t make sense, but I guess when you look as gay as I do it twists things up a little..."

Riku couldn’t help but sense a dash of acrimony in Zexion’s last quip. It was probably a stab about Riku assuming he was LGBTQ without knowing for sure. How the hell had he floated hand in hand with these nerds through a year of honors society and LGBTQ without realizing what sexuality either boasted?

"In your defense, Zex, he’s a total pretty boy. With a wig and some makeup he could pass."

"Ew, Nam, you mean he could catfish me?" Zexion hissed, redirecting, "but yeah, I was flattered that the hottest guy in school was into me. It was a total ego boost walking the halls with him."

"So you met in band?" Naminé goaded, inhaling another pizza slice and washing it down with strawberry milkshake.

"Are you trying to get me to tell the _whole_ story, Naminé?" Zexion compelled in a goofy voice.

"Yes, I’m getting you to tell the _whole_ story, Zexy," Naminé mirrored in an equally goofy voice. This must have been an inside joke between the two of them. When they peered towards Riku for encouragement, he gesticulated for them to take the floor at peak curiosity.

"Okay, so," Zexion adumbrated, "picture us in band: both percussion. I play marimba, Roxas snare. We both suck, by the way- as in we’re musically talentless, Naminé, get your mind out of the gutter-"

"Just keep going-"

"So we fuck around a lot... oh my hearts, as in we play practical jokes with the other band members, stop smiling!"

"I’m not!"

"But Roxas always finds a way to be physically close to me. So people have assumed I’m gay since sixth grade and I don’t even know what I am either, and people start telling me he likes me." 

"Wait, I’m confused on the timeline."

"Hearts... I join band in seventh grade as flute, flute’s too girly so I move on to percussion. I get into percussion in eighth grade and Roxas is in seventh. We make friends. Roxas starts getting touchy. A year and a half later, Roxas turns fourteen, comes out, and people start saying he likes me. I don’t know what to do. At this point he and I are hanging out constantly. We sneak into parties whenever we can and one night he says he likes me and kisses me, so I kiss him back. So we start going out and things get further and further till we bone in his room one night." 

"Top or...?"

"Oh my hearts, Nami, he boned me! At this point he’d already been fingering me, so I thought fuck it. Then the same night I boned him. So then we just keep boning everywhere but I’m always thinking about girls. So my parents get work in a different city and we move and he says he can’t see us working long distance unless we visit weekly and I’m relieved and eventually we break up and I tell him I think I like girls and he says he understands and then I ghost him."

"You cold bastard!" Naminé gasped, clapping her hands to her face. "He didn’t secretly coerce you or anything, did he?"

Riku reckoned his ears grew two sizes in response to that question. A part of him hoped to Kingdom Hearts that Roxas was a nice guy who would be nothing but a loving friend to Sora, but another, evil part of Riku wanted Roxas to be a dragon he could slay protect Sora’s honor. Especially after Riku’s first defeat at the concert.

"No way, Nami," Zexion dissented with candor. "He was nothing but kind. Maybe I’m not one hundred percent straight, because I did like him and I loved having sex with him, but it was more about what he was doing than him specifically. And when I did the same things with a girl it just felt different." 

"Oh, I can’t wait to have a girlfriend!" Naminé squealed in effervescence, cleaving to Zexion’s arm just short of nuzzling him. In that moment, their relationship illuminated itself before Riku’s eyes, divulging his own foolishness at the same time. Obviously, Zexion blindly followed Naminé into leadership and the LGBTQ club because he liked her romantically. Perhaps after crushing disappointment following asking her out, he bounced back and they became close friends.

"Remember when we first met in LGBTQ and you defended me from toothy Carla?" Naminé reminisced, to which Zexion hissed, "hearts, toothy Carla was so fucking weird. Totally pushy." 

"You were my knight in shining armor!" Naminé extolled. "Toothy Carla was insatiable from the moment she found out I was a lesbian. Well, even before that, to be honest." 

Hearts, had Riku always been such a bone head, or had the Radiant Garden concert shit out his every ounce of intuition in addition to his dignity?

"Sorry for hitting you with so much detail, Riku," Zexion continued with an emollient beam. "I don’t talk much, but once I start I can’t stop. Consider yourself initiated, for what it’s worth."

"Show him the girl, Zex!" Naminé encouraged.

Crinkling his nose in cursory indecision, Zexion gave up, scrolled to the girl’s profile, and pushed his phone Riku’s way.

She was strikingly beautiful, with pixie features, molten, thick lashed indigo eyes, short black hair, creamy skin, and a deceptively petite figure hiding muscular arms and legs. She brandished her athleticism in countless bikini shots: all legs, pert glutes, and washboard abs snuggled into a tiny waist as she somersaulted, leapt through the air doing splits and Russians, and engaged in handstand competitions with other pretty girls. When Riku looked at _Seashellsandsunflowers’_ post descriptions closer, he found that she was sponsored by a slew of beauty and clothing companies. She was a fucking Kingstagram model.

Dude, don’t you think you’re pitching a little high? Riku scoffed, to which Zexion screwed his face into a grimace, swiped his phone back, and punched onto the screen furiously with his thumbs. Just as Riku began wondering what was up, the phone slid his way again, open on a rather steamy conversation full of metaphors for wetness and entering things.

"Just don’t scroll down-" Zexion started.

Too late. Riku was face to face with a dick pick followed by _seashellsandsunflowers’_ avid approval in the form of a slew of eggplant and water droplet emojis along with the exultation, _I can’t freaking wait to see you in person._

"Holy fuck, dude, I said don’t scroll!" Zexion moaned, snatching his phone back and cradling it to his chest as Naminé peered over his shoulder.

"Ooh!" She gasped as he scrolled back through the conversation. "Boobs."

"Nami, don’t look!" Zexion squealed, and the two began to argue.

Riku would have listened if not stuck on the picture of Zexion’s dick, which was actually pretty good looking as far as dicks went. Not that it took much to impress Riku in the dick department. Just seeing a dick in person would be a great upgrade for him. In fact, the more he witnessed Naminé and Zexion’s banter, the more he missed Sora, and the more he missed Sora, the more he worried that he’d been an idiot for avoiding the boy for two weeks and leaving so much time for Roxas, resident whore of the country, time to swoop in on him. The more his anxiety grew, the faster he realized that Zexion brought Roxas up in the first place after seeing something fishy on Sora’s Kingstagram profile, and the more he mused on that, the more he realized that he needed to look at Sora’s account right now.

As Zexion lifted his hands to shake in Naminé’s face, Riku swiped his phone back and stared at the picture that had silenced the pair of them to begin with. Once he did, his eyeballs threatened to plop into his salad.

Photographed were Roxas and Sora. Drenched. In speedos. On Destiny beach. Faces and chests sticky with sea salt ice cream. Hugging. Tongues out. Eyes screwed shut with goofy laughter. Captioned, _ice cream can’t melt fast enough! #bffs #beachfun #messyeaters._

Riku gripped the table to keep from rolling backwards onto the floor. He’d never been a victim of vertigo, but now he felt like his brain had been thrown in a blender. Swaying back and forth, he gulped back his salad and whatever tears or screams were threatening to claw from inside him and scrolled again, and then again, and again.

There must have been twenty posts about Roxas. Roxas in class, Roxas and Sora riding bikes, Roxas playing guitar in his room, Roxas practicing with his band, Roxas on stage, Roxas, Sora, Axel, and Xion huddled up in the back of the band caravan on whose steps Riku had blown chunks. It was like a deranged child’s digital picture book with Roxas as the star and Sora as the writer. The oldest photo must have been taken by Larxene after the concert, when Riku and Vanitas had left for the night, because everyone was drenched in water, the sharpie had all but disappeared from Roxas’ chest, and they were all buck naked and grinning from ear to ear with more exhausted satisfaction than Riku thought humanely possible. The caption read _great freaking show!! #groupie #Seasalttrio #newfriends_. Everyone’s genitals were edited out with pictures of the band logo. Xion’s tits were replaced with photoshopped pictures of Axel when he was pubescent, acne ridden, and tragically corpulent. The whole presentation might have passed for humorous had Riku not been so incensed he contemplated running across the food court tables and smashing through the mall windows.

When Zexion and Naminé noticed how pallid he had turned, their smiles faltered and they asked, Riku, are you okay?

Indeed, Riku was not okay. Right about now, he was meandering through his own Kingstagram, the most recent photos overwhelmingly of Sora, and before that of himself and Kairi, from a time when life had seemed simpler and filled with manifold possibilities.

Swallowing hard, he returned to Sora’s account, scrolling from pictures of Roxas to pictures of Sora and himself, eventually happening upon a throwback photo of Sora at five years old with dribble down his shirt, sitting on Vanitas’ lap helping Vanitas pick at his guitar. The polaroid had been taken in someone’s garage. The space had been cleared for a rug and drum set, and though it was hard to make out details, Riku surmised that this was from the era of Vanitas’ garage bands. Sure enough, the caption read, _me and my big bro! #glorydays #unversedhearse #metalhead_. Beneath the caption were over one hundred comments and over three hundred likes.

Though Sora consistently bungled his way to be one of the most popular boys in school, he never figured out why everyone loved him so much. Riku had never told Sora that it was because of how special he was lest the boy realize his power and leave Riku in the dust like he had been doing ever since he met Roxas. Just what was that evil blond putting in his head now, when Riku was helpless to protest?

Like a portent of Heartless in a ring of flowers, a comment made by Roxas blazed from the middle of the throwback post. Bolded were the words, _I now know my musical inspiration’s true source of genius ;)_ followed by a blown kiss and heart and arrow emojis. The comment was dated the same evening as the concert, during the few hours that Roxas and Sora had been separated that day. As Riku scrolled through the rest of Sora’s account and then Roxas’, counting all the times they had liked or commented on each others’ posts, he wondered if, perhaps, Vanitas was the only reason Roxas was interested in Sora to begin with. Maybe _he_ was the source of their sudden camaraderie. Unversed Hearse seemed to be the sole propriety binding Roxas’ life together. The only thing the link didn’t explain was why Sora forsook reaching out to Riku in favor of posting kingsta shots with Roxas on the beach all week. What had changed, besides Riku’s unfortunate, hungover challenge for Sora to leave him alone? And why so soon? Was Roxas so dangerous that it took a mere two weeks for Sora to forget Riku’s friendship completely?

Just when Naminé and Zexion grew worried that Riku would never speak again, he swept up with a cloying grin, stuffed his mouth with Italian dressed salad, and oozed, "say, why don’t you text Roxas right now?"

"What?" Zexion breathed, Naminé following with a befuddled blink.

"Text Roxas now!" Riku blustered. "You owe him an apology for ghosting him. Before moving on with this new girl, put your old regrets to bed! Manners maketh man, not new clothes!"

Yes, the quote was over 500 years old yet yes, Riku had first heard it in _Kingsman_ , a pop culture fluff flick with a cluster of very attractive male leads, but damn if he wouldn't let his gusto make him sound more intelligent than he actually was. His enthusiasm was so palpable that it inspired Zexion to slip another peep Naminé’s way.

Also impossible not to note was the fine sheet of sweat transforming Riku from human being to living wax sculpture, so Zexion overcame his reservations and undertook The silveret’s suggestion, shrugging, following Roxas’ account, and shooting him a message of greeting. When he met Naminé’s glance again, his cheeks pinked. "What?" The blue haired man snapped. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I’m just proud of you," Naminé revered. "That was brave."

"Well, it’s not like he’s going to text back," Zexion derided. "I certainly wouldn't." 

Before he could finish his thought, a clinking sound effect rattled his phone, making he and Naminé jump. When he looked down, he paled in shock. "Holy shit, that was fast." 

"Is it him?" Riku hissed, shoving his rabbit food aside and leaning the entire upper half of his body over the food court table to get a look at Zexion’s phone screen. When Naminé patted the seat on Zexion’s other side, Riku fought the urge to renege to her affection. Alas, his penchant for snooping was insatiable. Plopping at Zexion’s side and thrusting his chin over the man’s shoulder, Riku absorbed his phone screen as best as he could.

_Hey Zexion,_ Roxas had scent with an open eyed smiley emoji: the ultimate perfectly casual, obtuse, olive branch gesture. _What’s up?_

"Oh, he’s good!" Naminé chortled. "It’s like you guys never stopped talking at all." 

Riku could have grown fangs and suckled the screen at any second. Blood vessels popped all over his overactive corneas as sweat dripped along his lashes. "How are you going to respond?" He demanded.

"Shit," Zexion breathed, biting his lip till it bled. "Why is this so much higher stakes than I thought it would be?" 

"Just apologize!" Naminé barked. "Do what you came to do! He clearly won’t be mad at you!"

"Okay, okay," Zexion blustered, wiping his brows with quivering fingers and fishing a clip from his pocket to pin his hair back. _Just apologizing for ghosting you all those years back_ , he typed tentatively, emboldened by Naminé’s nod enough to add, _I was immature and you were way too kind_.

"Fuck!" Naminé squealed as he sent it, clinging Zexion tighter. With the way Naminé and Riku were closing in, Zexion might sprain a rib if he breathed too fast. When Roxas messaged back and everyone jumped or yelped, he upbraided, "hearts, guys, personal space!"

Though Naminé acquiesced, Riku could not, swallowing half of his fist as he read through Roxas’ disgustingly gentleman like response.

_We were both kids, Zex. I like to think I knew you well enough to realize you needed space. I just hope I wasn’t too pushy when we were together. I worried for a long time that I coerced you into doing shit you didn’t want to. You seemed so willing to try everything and I loved you for that but should have read into it more. I’m so sorry if I took advantage of you._

It was as if Riku and Naminé floated into the ether as Zexion returned, _absolutely not, Rox. You made me excited to try new things. You never took advantage of me. I just never wanted to disappoint you because you were my first love. I was confused on what kind of love that was because of all the toxic shit I was taking in at that age, like of course if two guys hug or want to touch each other they have to automatically fuck each other, right?_

_Fuck yeah! Like, why can’t guys just be affectionate regardless of sexuality? Lol, makes me want to hug you, dude._

_Likewise!_

"We should catch up," Riku mouthed in Zexion’s ear, giving himself an internal high five as Zexion typed and sent the words immediately. Hypnosis for the win.

_Oh my hearts yes!! Where r u now?_

_Literally at the food court of Twilight Town Mall. I go to community college nearby._

_Holy fuck, I just moved to TT from RG!_

_No way! Do you like it?_

_Honestly boring af_

"Ask if he’s met anyone," Riku pleaded, donning a seraphic grin when Zexion jumped and stared at him.

Shrugging, Zexion asked, _any romantic leads?_

"Any romantic leads," Naminé mocked in a goofy voice, giggling as Zexion scowled.

_I assume you’ve seen my Kingsta?_

_Yeah. Is it the red head in your band photo?_

_Ew, no. Lol, no more punks ;P. It’s that hot brunet from my last few posts._

Unnatural silence shrouded the table as Naminé and Zexion tried not to catch Riku’s eye. Riku, on the other hand, could stare at nothing but the cruel hieroglyphics blazing from Zexion’s message dash. Like a hammer to coffin nails, Roxas’ messages kept coming.

_I’ve never been so obsessed with someone. He’s so unique and oblivious to how amazing he is. Reminds me of you that way. He’s also this rad mix of confident and humble, he’s a total risk taker and so fearless. Funny af. And he’s so fucking hot naked._

"Oh, shit," Naminé wheezed under her breath, grimacing with each of Riku’s shallow breaths.

Riku remained ninety percent calm. After all, Sora had stripped off for the kingsta band pic. Maybe he slept naked, so what? Live and let live. It was just like a perv such as Roxas to catch a peek while Sora was oblivious. Like Riku said before: dragon in need of slaying.

_His face is sexy no matter what, it’s terrifying. I just stare at each tiny change to catch something ugly but there’s nothing. He’s perfect. Literally the only thing holding him back is this weird friend of his that’s super possessive and likes him but can’t pick up the balls to ask him out. Actually, I think he might go to your community college. Riku. Do u know anything about him? Is he a nice guy or should I watch out for him? Seems a little delusional._

If the table was silent before, now it floated in a void of nothingness where sound waves were stuff of fantasy. Naminé and Zexion boldly stared into their cold pizza slices and melting shakes while Riku tried to breath or gulp or carry on some sort of normal physiological function but failed. Lost, he stumbled to standing, half swallowed half coughed, and garbled, "this was fun guys, but, uh... got some errands. Nice weekend." With that, he was running. Through the food court, through the department store, through the car park to his bike so fast that Zexion and Naminé didn’t have time to react.

Riku reached the train in record time and pitched his bike inside with one hand, shaking from head to toe as he watched the stops on the electric sign move from the mall, to the college, and all the way to Sora’s stop. Then, fixing his jaw, he jumped on the seat, waited for the doors to open, and pedaled out, squealing across the tracks, across the bus yard, and onto the road with tire marks rippling behind him. By the time he reached Sora’s street, he was panting, seeing spots, and had sweat clean through his crisp starched polo and vintage sports coat. Camouflaging as a cumulonimbus cloud had not been his original plan, but his brain was too high on oxygen and adrenaline to worry about making a scene. When he saw that both Sora and Roxas’ driveways were empty, he figured that maybe the gods were on his side. Then Cloud’s sedan pulled up behind him and started beeping.

"Motherfucker," Riku blustered in agony, turning and waving when Cloud stuck his head out the driver window to say hello.

"You here to visit Sora, kiddo?" Cloud inquired with a smile, as if Riku had not destroyed one of his favorite outfits two weeks back by shitting all over it. "He and Roxas are at HD&L Ice Cream Stop. You hurry, you might catch them before they get back." 

"I’m good," Riku managed, clutching his side and brightening with an idea. As Cloud parked, Riku swerved onto the grass and set his bike down, collapsing amidst a gaggle of petunias to catch his breath. When Cloud hopped out of the sedan with groceries in hand and trudged to Riku’s side, his warm smile disappeared.

"Hearts, Riku, you’re pale as a ghost," the man fretted. "Your neck looks tiny."

"I lost twenty pounds-"

"Fucking shit-"

"To food poisoning." 

"From the concert?" Cloud inquired, scowling as he explained, "Vanitas told me all about it. I’m going to sue those Radiant Garden bodegas one day, I swear..." until Riku decided to lie back on the grass to avoid falling unconscious and Cloud leapt to his rescue.


	5. Orgasm Addict

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riku heads to Roxas' house for some dirt on his relationship with Sora and discovers far, far more than he bargained for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters for the price of one. I need to figure out Ao3 coding so I can make these chapters look better. Right now, they're disgustingly bare.

Kindness was an understatement when it came to Cloud. The man was a god plastic wrapped in an inferior hominid form that somehow shone brighter than any human Riku had ever laid eyes on. Except for Sora, of course, and maybe Riku’s dad. Anyway.  
  
Either Riku’s twenty pound weight loss was showing, or Cloud was impressively strong, because the man carried Riku on one arm into the house before settling him like a feather in his favorite arm chair. Before Riku could mumble thanks, the older man disappeared into the kitchen, rattled around the cupboards, poured something, and came back to Riku holding a glass of hazy yellow liquid with chunks drifting at the bottom and a spoon thrust into it. "Lemon ginger water with a dash of honey," he adumbrated, watching as Riku took a few sips. "Settles the stomach. Not bad, right?"  
  
"Not good either," Riku retorted low enough for the utterance to pass off as a groan, but somehow Cloud comprehended his mutterings and even laughed.  
  
"You think your stomach might be up for some banana and peanut butter toast?" The blond winked, and Riku felt his legs squiggle and melt into jelly.  
  
"Might be up for what?" Riku breathed, lost on how Cloud licked his lips before uttering long thoughts, as well as how the man’s smile was often a smirk that tugged against one cheek like a naughty child. Kingdom Hearts, Riku, pull yourself together!  
  
"My specialty," Cloud winked, beaming when Riku whimpered through a laugh. "I made it all the time for Roxas when he was little. You think your shit fest at the concert was a debacle, try being ten at your crush’s birthday party and pooping on the cake. Don’t ask me how it happened, because whenever I ask Roxas for details he tries to murder me... also maybe don’t mention that I told you that story. I’d rather live."   
  
How could Riku not smile? Cloud was doing something few adults ever bothered with: making him comfortable. Trading embarrassing stories to make him believe he wasn’t alone. Cloud was expert at such tactics. It half made Riku wonder what his job had been in the armed forces.  
  
"I see you’ve spotted my medals," Cloud goaded, gesticulating to the keepsakes box nestled behind the left corner of the couch. It was filled with memorabilia: whistles, a hat, bits of fabric that must have come from fatigues, and papers and the medals. "You must have a military background."  
  
"My dad," Riku conceded. "First Class."  
  
"Shit, Riku!" Cloud extolled. "That’s special. What’s his name? I’m sure I know him."  
  
Well... Riku swallowed, feigning hesitation. Any excuse to gush about his dad was good enough, and with military guys, usually the name alone turned heads. "Sephiroth," he whispered, and on cue, Cloud reeled back and slapped his hand to his forehead.  
  
"No! Of course! The resemblance! How did I not see it before?"  
  
Like a snuffed match, Riku’s smile left. "I lack his strongest features," he settled on, surprised when Cloud snorted.  
  
"Don’t sell yourself short, Riku," the man intoned. "You’re a descendant of very strong stuff."   
  
"As I’m so often reminded."  
  
"He was my mentor, you know."  
  
"He was?" Riku balked, and Cloud nodded with a fond, distant smile.  
  
"I joined the military at fifteen years old. Lied about my age. Almost got myself dishonorably discharged. Back then shit like that was easier to hide, and besides, my folks didn’t care. Sephiroth was always there for me, like a surrogate brother. You could talk to him about anything and he’d listen. He was the first person I told about my son Ven."  
  
"What do you mean?" Riku impugned.  
  
"I met Aerith on leave," Cloud sighed, cheeks pinking. "Spent a whole thirty days falling in love and listening to rock music. Then, a month later, she called and said she was pregnant."   
  
There was a telltale hitch in Cloud’s throat as he said this, and when Riku glanced over, he was alarmed to see that the man had tears in his eyes and his palm planted firmly before his pursed, trembling lips.  
  
"Let me tell you, Riku," he revered in a whisper, "nothing, and I mean nothing, will ever replace looking into my baby boy’s eyes for the first time. I never realized what beauty and love really were until that day..."  
  
_Kingdom Hearts, save me..._ Riku groaned internally, slaking the rest of the ginger water as an excuse to cringe without hurting Cloud’s feelings.  
  
"You’re right, Riku," the man murmured despite, closing his eyes with a barely audible groan, "I’m getting distracted by the past."  
  
"I implied no such thing," Riku blurted in a flat voice, returning his gaze to his empty glass when Cloud pinned him with narrow eyes. Suddenly, a hand was patting his knee, followed by a voice that thundered, “how about that toast, son?”  
  
_Son?_ “Buh-bah-I-wah?” Riku fumbled, but Cloud was already clattering around the kitchen and switching on the toaster.  
  
"I asked Sephiroth what to do about little Ven. He asked if I loved Aerith, his mom, and I said fuck, yeah, and I did, but even then there were reservations. He said if I loved the mom I should do anything to keep her by my side. He must have had you a few years later."  
  
"Yup," Riku conceded from the armchair.  
  
Cloud chuckled. "Ended my military career at 24 and never looked back. There were tough times, don’t get me wrong, but Ven and Roxas... they're truly the best kids in the world. I’m sure your dad would have something different to say about that. You’re his best kept secret!"   
  
"Yeah," Riku swallowed. "He’s not a talker."   
  
"How are his other three? Kadaj, Zazu, and Liz?"  
  
"Kadaj, Yazoo, and Loz. They’re good."   
  
"Kingdom Hearts, he’d kill me for getting the names wrong. Are they still working for him?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Think you will in the future?"   
  
"Nope," Riku slipped in as Cloud gave him his toast. When he looked at the plate, his jaw dropped. Cloud had divided the toast into baby toasts, one square for each banana slice with a dollop of peanut butter on top and no crust in sight. How did he know?  
  
Taking a square and popping it in his mouth, Riku reveled at the thoughtful simplicity and beamed.  
  
"Aerith made the peanut butter."  
  
"‘S amazing."  
  
"It’s definitely next level."   
  
"So she’s with a different guy, now?"  
  
"Yeah." Cloud was surprisingly mute on this point, so Riku assumed it was a touchy subject. To his surprise, the man continued, "when you’re so lost in love and the complexities of daily life, you lose sight of what’s important. When she chose someone else, the person she’d loved from the beginning, I was devastated. Then I realized that I wasn’t being true to my own feelings, either, I was just following the path I thought was right. After we separated and I didn’t lose Roxas like I feared I would, my whole world shifted."  
  
Pain rippled through Cloud’s body with each memory, but despite the torture, he kept divulging himself to Riku. Why, the silveret couldn’t surmise. His best guess was that Cloud was building up to some dad lesson crafted just for him. There was nothing he could do but continue eating his toast.  
  
"It took a recalibration, a struggle, to push me to try something new. To give me the courage to pursue a better life for myself and my sons. Then I realized that Aerith wasn’t just a promise, or lover, or my boys' mother. She was my best friend, and being apart would never change that. In fact, it made us stronger. Then I remembered someone who’d been present throughout my life but I’d never given much thought to."  
  
"Tifa," Riku grumbled, to which Cloud laughed.  
  
"We butted heads a lot as kids, but the second time we met up, we were like a house on fire," Cloud exulted, hands reaching out and curving around an inchoate body before relinquishing in embarrassment and piping up, "like you and Vanitas!"  
  
Suddenly, Riku had a twisted idea of where this was going. Ramming the rest of his toast in his mouth, he folded his hands over his empty plate and beamed through half chewed bread, "you got any baby pictures?"   
  
"I think Roxas keeps them in his room," Cloud mused, sitting on the couch with some toast of his own. "He hides them so I can’t show them off to guests."  
  
"Smart," Riku drawled, swallowing the last of his food and spiriting, "I was curious about Sora and Roxas’ relationship-"  
  
Cloud’s sudden choking was far from reassuring. As the older man pumped his chest and wiped tears from his eyes as well as toast flakes from his nose, Riku continued, "Roxas was into Unversed Hearse as a kid, which happens to be Vanitas’ oldest garage band-"  
  
"Violent Half was his first band," Cloud wheezed, sprinting to the kitchen for some water before returning and blowing his nose.  
  
"Whatever," Riku berated, soldiering on, "so I wonder if Roxas chose Twilight Town to be closer to Vanitas."  
  
"I chose Twilight Town, Riku," Cloud huffed, coughing a final time before plopping on the couch in exhaustion. "Roxas was devastated. Threatened to run away to Aerith. Until meeting Sora he called Twilight Town the Capitol of Hell."   
  
"Oh," Riku said, fumbling, "but, the fact that Vanitas was here must have softened the blow-"  
  
"I think you’re overestimating Roxas’ love of Unversed Hearse, Riku," Cloud mused. "He actually started re-listening to it after Sora came over for dinner the first time. Sucks, honestly. Call it age, but I can’t stand that music anymore. All sex and gore and drugs. There's one song about splitting a baby in half and stuffing it into a motorcycle mask, just unnecessarily dark. As a dad it hurt my heart." To illustrate, Cloud wrinkled his nose like a noxious gas had slithered its way through the window. On cue, a jarring musical note lifted from next door. When Riku peeped across the living room, he saw Vanitas’ hazy black outline through his open studio window. His lithe shape told Riku that he was either naked or clad in nothing but briefs. When Cloud cleared his throat from the couch, Vanitas jumped and hurried to the windowsill, leaning out and meeting Cloud’s eye with a blush.  
  
"Howdy, Van," Cloud mused, holding up his glass as Riku averted his gaze. This was just what he needed: Vanitas questioning why he was sitting in Cloud’s living room.  
  
"Am I being too loud?" Vanitas called in, eyes their signature hazy red.  
  
"No," Cloud retorted. "I’d just rather not see you naked."   
  
Vanitas averted his gaze and rubbed his cheeks, coming back with a cloying smirk to say, "sorry, sir, I forget sometimes that your house is reoccupied."  
  
"Riku’s here, if you want to stop by for banana toast," Cloud offered, and Riku considered spontaneously combusting. Unfortunately, his body remained uncooperative to his wishes.  
  
"Is he?" Vanitas lilted in careful surprise. "I think I’ll pass. Riku and I aren’t on the best of terms right now."  
  
"Do you mind if I borrow one of Roxas’ CDs, sir?" Riku mouthed to Cloud so that Vanitas couldn’t see or hear. "I want to get a feel for what kind of music he and Sora listen to. That way we can go to more concerts together. You know, something everyone can enjoy."  
  
Despite wincing, Cloud offered, "I can’t lend out Roxas’ CDs without his permission, but I can offer his sound system if you want to hang up there and play some tunes until they get back."   
  
"Would you mind making me some more toast?" Riku added. "This first batch was rad."  
  
"Absolutely, Riku!" Cloud beamed. "And I’ll get in touch with your dad, see if he’d like to come out for dinner some time."  
  
When Riku responded, "he and my mom are separated," Cloud’s smile gave way to a worried grimace as he intimated, "oh, Riku, I’m sorry."   
  
"No prob," Riku shot back, rising to end the conversation and ignoring the way Vanitas called his name. "I’ll be upstairs if you need me."  
  
"What if Vanitas came over and listened, too?" Cloud offered. "He could explain his song choices!"  
  
"No thank you," Riku minced, staring daggers at Vanitas before leaping up the stairs and into Roxas’ bedroom.  
  
Everything was the same save a few key details. There were more mature band posters including a glossy new one depicting Vanitas, some mullet headed blond, a buff guy with dreds, a young man with tan skin, golden eyes, and silver hair as well as, to Riku’s surprise, a slightly younger Larxene. Vanitas (despite barely looking legal), the mullet headed man, and the silver haired, golden eyed boy leaned towards a microphone making orgasm faces with their tongues pointed towards each other. Larxene stood behind them like a horror movie version of a cranky mom while the guy with dreds crossed a set of drumsticks before his chest in the background at the poster’s other side. The caption read, _beats to make the boys go wild!_ If Riku was being honest, though the silver headed boy was far more handsome, Vanitas’ ecstasy face was far more convincing, enough to make him cough and readjust his pants.  
  
"It makes me uncomfortable, too," Cloud sighed gravely from the stairwell, glowering at the poster version of Vanitas like he wanted to ground him.  
  
Riku made a show of rifling through Roxas’ CDs as Cloud stood by, slipping out a homemade one with a drawn picture of a demon with Vanitas’ features and a bloody hole with exposed ribs and spine where his heart and lung should have been. His devilish golden eyes rolled up in ecstasy, and while grinning and picking a guitar, he appeared to be licking hickeys on his own neck. The album’s back cover pictured a group of poxy teens hacking at an old man dressed as Dracula in a coffin, with a hearse open and crashed behind them. Appropriate.  
  
"You found the worst one of all," Cloud sighed, leaning towards a pile of Polaroids by Roxas’ bedside and chuckling. When Riku slipped the CD into the speaker system and followed Cloud’s eyes, he paled.  
  
Roxas had a photo of he and Sora kissing by his lamp. Framing it were an assortment of glued shells that looked suspiciously like they came from Destiny Islands Beach.  
  
_Daddy?_ came Vanitas’ deranged, panting voice across the speakers. _Mommy? I can’t sleep. My bed is shaking._ Then came the sounds of creaking bed springs and gay porn sound effects.  
  
"And that is my cue to leave," Cloud uttered, bolting from the room just as Vanitas’ entire band screeched like banshees over a thundering drum and guitar buildup. After a cymbal crash, the song truly began, more a spoken (ie shouted) word piece with drumbeats and guitar twangs plastered throughout than actual music.  
  
_Anal sex... anal sex... anal sex... ANAL SEX!_ came a chorus of male voices, then a guitar twang and littered sex sounds.  
  
Ah. Much cool. Such culture. Vanitas truly was a genius worthy of Roxas’ dumb ass band’s devotion.  
  
_Mommy, daddy, it sucks to disappoint you, but why’d you stick me in a school with this many hot dudes?_  
  
Riku didn’t know whether there was an attempt at rhyme concealed in the verse, or even if the song had employed any sort of rhythm at all, or of course if it could be labeled a song to begin with. Perhaps Vanitas operated on a higher power that Riku, in his iniquity, could not begin to comprehend.  
  
_I can’t concentrate I hate the way they make me feel, these aren’t emotions I was programmed to deal with._  
  
Okay. Internal rhyme: a small development.  
  
_School yard, supply closet, behind the bleachers, I can’t stop it, anywhere or hole or dick I don’t give a fuck, my elders can suck it._  
  
Cloud didn’t even enter the room, just slid the second banana toast to Riku’s feet with a well timed frisby arm from across the hall. When the song started explicitly describing (with sound effects) Vanitas’ first time, the older man clutched his chest and fired back down the stairs for good, croaking, "I’m heading out for a bit, Riku, so I’ll trust you to hold down the fort, okay?"  
  
"Totes def," Riku grinned, turning the volume up as loud as it could go as the band started repeating, _fuck me in the ass, boys, fuck me in the mouth! Fuck me fuck me fuck me until I pass out!_ until the front door slammed and Cloud fled to his car at breakneck speed. As soon as the sedan had swerved from the driveway into the freedom of the street, Riku switched the volume down and cracked his neck, feeling around for more suitable music to aid his search.  
  
Oh ho ho, holy shit. Not only had Roxas stocked his room with new posters, he had developed a collection of new CDs, all Sora’s favorites. There were copious Disney soundtracks, lots of Black Eyed Peas, and a few _NOW That’s What I Call Music_ collections. Basically, the most childish or mainstream music known to man, because Sora was musically as un-evolved as a person could get.  
  
Smirking, Riku slipped out the _Moana_ soundtrack but faltered when the first Unversed Hearse song changed to a ballad with a passable acoustic guitar solo.  
  
_Have you seen my other half? Could have sworn I chipped away until I thought I found a way inside the broken windows of my heart_  
  
Riku rolled his eyes and threw the Moana soundtrack aside, figuring if he wanted to get inside the mind of the enemy, he might as well entertain the music he hadn’t heard yet.  
  
_He gets me and he understands and when I cry he holds my hand, his absence tells me that he’s left his mark_  
  
Surreal to think of Vanitas in love, but the sentiment definitely shone through the lyrics, along with impending heartbreak. Maybe someone else wrote the parts that required human emotions.  
  
_I never thought I’d see the day when I’ve got nothing left to say he knew that I was broken from the start_  
  
What Riku was looking for, exactly, he didn’t know, but judging by the Polaroids on the side of Roxas’ bed, if he didn’t find dirt on the blond fast enough, Sora might actually fall for him.  
  
_In the desert lies a baby. Beneath the land, he’s cold and starving, crying out but his mouth’s filled with sand. Scoop him out and cut him up, if he bleeds it’s just my luck because he never tried to live till now, and I was given nothing to help him grow. So take him to my other half, inside the mask and watch him laugh because he knows I gave him all I could. My sweat and blood, let that be enough._  
  
And, sweet ballad over. Now came the description of cutting up the baby and whisking it off on a high flying motorcycle adventure through some mountains as a metaphor of what... feeling “trapped” or disembodied, or some shit? Kingdom Hearts, had Riku been fooled. For a second, he thought an actual, beating human heart existed in Vanitas’ chest. Alas, there was nothing there but depraved, postmodern lube dressed up as tragic majesty. At least Vanitas had been honest with Axel at the concert: his music was trash.   
  
Punching the pause button, Riku plopped on Roxas’ bed and swiveled around to look at the ceiling, testing the springs. There was a definite cleft at the center where Roxas slept, but curiously, when Riku padded the corner of the bed facing the door with his heel, the springs sagged lower than anywhere else on the mattress. Most curious.  
  
Scrambling up, Riku checked along the underside, found a stray gay porn mag (who read printed porn in the 21st century? Was Roxas secretly a deranged old man, or did he surf the web for fap material like every other upstanding citizen?) and a combination of twenty cents in coins. When he moved under the bed, he came up empty. On to the closet.  
  
He crawled across the carpet feeling for clefts, just in case Roxas had fashioned an ingenious hutch somewhere under the floorboards. No such luck, but the moment Riku opened the closet doors, he was faced with a keepsakes box filled with swimming, running, and skateboarding medals, along with coins from around the world, photographs, and sharpie labeled CD roms, VHS tapes, and flash drives. The photos spanned Roxas’ entire life and family, from pictures with his mom, Cloud, and an almost identical older brother on sprawling Olympus beaches, to doing martial arts in Radiant Garden with Tifa, or practicing fishing with a handsome, black haired man who Riku assumed was his mother’s new husband. Riku’s chest panged as he settled on a photo of Cloud, Roxas’ mother, and her new husband, hugging like old friends. Roxas got to grow up with two moms, a brother, and two loving dads, while Riku...  
  
Cascading the photos aside, he foraged deeper, landing on a curious cassette with a note banded around it with rubber. When he undid the note, it read, _found this ditty going through old shit. Fond memories. How did you ever find me attractive enough for this? I seriously bamboozled you. Much love, first love. You’re the best and always will be- Ax._ The front of the tape itself read, in sharpie, _Sex Tape!_  
  
An evil little smirk prickled its way from Riku’s left cheek to his right, engulfing him in a grin that was just short of insane. There was an ancient camcorder beside the keepsakes box along with the cords necessary to plug it into a television. Whipping from the window to the staircase, Riku checked that he was alone. Then he scuttled to Roxas’ TV, hooked the camcorder up, popped in the sex tape, and hit play.  
  
A little disconcerting was the opening clip: Riku hadn’t expected it to start off with a paltry recording of _Starsky and Hutch_ , but Roxas’ sex tape must have been recorded over this old recording. Sure enough, the picture took an abrupt switch to Roxas, no more than fifteen, doing skateboard tricks down a ramp in RG Skate Park, judging by the sign overhead and Axel’s commentary. On the third pass, he attempted an Ollie, tripped, and stumbled into the grass, making Axel chortle and add, _whoa, dude, close one_ , in a distinctly more congested version of his current nasal voice. Roxas popped up from the grass with one eye winced shut against the sun, his cheek screwed up in support while the teeth below bared in an uneven grin. Axel chuckled as Roxas adjusted his beanie, making the boy’s dumb, oblivious gaze melt into a smile as the younger boy giggled, _what? What’s so funny?_ In a small, hesitant voice.  
  
_Nothing, sexy,_ Axel responded with dopey lewdness that somehow made Roxas blush and shake his head in diffident satisfaction, almost dropping the camera as he strolled over. What followed was a deafening, minute long symphony of clatters, fumbles, and congested curses along with close up shots of Axel's bumbling hands.   
  
_You’re dumb,_ Roxas whispered as soon as the camera righted itself, making Axel cluck laughter before asking Roxas if he wanted to make a sex tape.  
  
Roxas stared into the lens with true surprise before melting back into faux candor. It was the kind of face that people aware of being filmed pulled when they didn’t want to appear concerned about being filmed, but there was an infuriating endearment to how Roxas acted when aware of being recorded that was different: a delight in being watched but innocence of the implications. _You’re punking me_ , he drawled in his ‘cool’ voice, making Axel snicker in his nauseatingly stuffy purr.  
  
_What if I’m not? What are you going to do about it?_  
  
Axel’s challenge wrapped up in a terrible attempt to flirt somehow alighted Roxas enough to make him shrug. _Don’t know_ , the blond whispered. _Guess I’d have to take you at your word._  
  
Axel’s almost inaudible chortle followed by a gangly, peach fuzzy Roxas letting slip another extravagant shrug and pert grin told Riku that, despite their gross unawareness of how cringe they were at that age, they were seriously managing to turn each other on. It made something squirm in Riku that he didn’t like. How many times had he paraded himself in youth, egged on by someone who was secretly laughing at his misplaced bravery?  
  
"Stop thinking," he commanded, biting his lip and training his eyes back to the film, which had switched to Axel and Roxas sneaking into an apartment garage and up the stairs.  
  
_We have to be quiet_ , Roxas explained with a performed shush, offering exposition to the terrible movie. _Or Cloud could catch us._  
  
_Hey, boys_ , barked a voice out of frame that definitely did not belong to Cloud. When the camera swiveled down, it zoomed through the staircase bars onto an old man with squinty eyes and a toothpick hanging out of his mouth. _Whatchall doin’ paddin’ aroun like panthers?_  
  
_Nothing, Cid_ , Axel droned in a deepened voice, and Cid slipped his toothpick from his lips and used it to scratch deep inside his nose. In reply, the video cut off again, resuming in Roxas’ bedroom as he opened his underwear drawer in childish excitement. If Riku peered into the corner of the frame, he could spot a long mirror that illuminated a rather chunky Axel swiveling on a star-backed, wheeled chair with a half open mouth and a dumb, distant gaze with the camcorder in hand. Riku had to admit, the red spider had had pulled off a remarkable glow up in the years following, despite remaining just as sleazy as the last time Riku set eyes on him.  
  
_What about these?_ Roxas offered, holding up one of the few briefs in his drawer that were not off white from overuse or studded with pictures of anime characters. _These are pretty adult._  
  
_Use Dusk’s dog leash_ , Axel offered, scratching his bum because he obviously hadn’t realized he was accidentally recording himself yet. _Fashion a pair of chaps out of it._  
  
As if Riku needed that mental picture solidified, the recording cut abruptly to an up close shot of Roxas holding a little grey puppy who yipped and licked his face. _This is Dusk_ , he introduced. _He’s ten months old. I got him for my birthday. He hates Axel and likes to bite him._  
  
_Literally have no clue why_ , Axel droned in return, to which Riku cupped his hands around his mouth and boomed, "cause you’re a chav, homey!"   
  
The video cut back to Roxas’ bedroom, with Roxas still fully clothed (thank hearts) and commanding Dusk unsuccessfully to stop biting at Axel’s pant leg. The little dog was visible in the mirror reflection ripping its head back and forth through Axel’s jeans like his life depended on it. In the next shot, Dusk was licking the camera. In the next, Dusk was grunting in satisfaction as Roxas cooed and rubbed his belly. Then, the dog was gone, the bedroom door was successfully closed, and Roxas was asking again what Axel thought he should wear.  
  
The slow, innocuous buildup left Riku completely unprepared for when the video suddenly cut to a messily recorded (Roxas had mistakenly pointed the camcorder up, thus filming his own body neck up instead of down) 'something' that Riku assumed was Axel giving Roxas a blowjob. Yelping, Riku dove for the camcorder and shut the tape off, freaked out by the fact that Roxas had been a minor. Wait, how the fuck old had Axel been in that shot? Had to at least have been seventeen.  
  
Guilt wracked through him as he undid the contraption and put it back in the corner of Roxas’ closet. Then, he sat back on the saggy side of Roxas’ bed, held himself, and stared up at Vanitas’ band poster as though it were a crucifix in a confession box.  
  
So far, his quest to discover Roxas’ dark secrets had overturned nothing. All Roxas appeared to be was a regular guy, albeit a very suave, ripped one who knew he was hot shit. Is that what sexual experience afforded? Somewhere between that sex tape and now, Roxas had transformed from fuzzy, oblivious duckling to killer swan, from shy boy excited to explore his sexuality but unsure of his place in the world to total boho frat Don Juan with dollar store sandals and pert ass cheeks that actually filled out his ridiculous linen shorts. Riku had been alive a whole year longer, but what had he to show for it? Tragic sports coats, virginal naïveté, and a grave of shit stained clothes in his mother’s backyard?  
  
Dammit, part of the reason Riku loved Sora so easily was that he felt more comfortable around the boy than anyone else, even his own parents. There was no one else but Sora, and there never would be. It had to be him.  
  
"I have to tell him," Riku whispered to the poster of Vanitas and Larxene on the wall. "I have to tell him tonight, before Roxas tries to ask him out." He also had to evacuate the house before he was caught rifling through anything serious. As if on cue, what must have been Cloud’s sedan beeped up the driveway, followed by exchanged voices. Alas. Riku’s time was up.  
  
As the voices wafted onto the porch and the front door opened and closed, he considered calling out to Cloud and asking if he could stay for dinner. That way, he could catch Sora right away, before Roxas had the chance to drag the boy up to his sex pad.

Before Riku could open his mouth, Sora’s voice giggled through the whole house.

Paling, Riku perked his ear in confusion. Had Sora actually just entered the house, or had Riku officially gone loopy?  
  
"Cloud?" Accompanied Roxas’ voice. "We’re back."   
  
There settled a silence in which Riku considered leaping out the window. Then, someone began running up the staircase, and Riku army crawled under the bed so fast he would have put Cloud’s training record to shame. When Sora’s bare, tan legs appeared in Roxas’ bedroom doorway, the empty plate of what once was banana toast twinkled under the misplaced light surrounding his silhouette and Riku stifled a scream.  
  
"How long do you think we have?" Sora blustered down the stairs, ignoring the plate. From this angle, Riku could see up to his waist but no higher. He was wearing those tragic red cargo shorts of his.  
  
"I told him to take his time," Roxas called downstairs. "Thirty minutes at most?"  
  
"Fuck," Sora growled. Then, he gestured something Riku couldn’t see.

There was a pregnant pause as Sora pointed his body towards something downstairs. Then, like an ensnared, feral creature, he leapt through the doorframe and squealed as he flung articles of clothing to and fro. The last Riku saw of him was his naked lower body as he bounded onto the bed with an ugly thud of springs. It was a wonder the frame didn’t collapse and stab Riku in the back, but the way Sora was jumping on the bed, Riku didn’t see how he’d last much longer. The boy was emitting childish giggles and huffs as he bounced, twirling around and whooping at the ceiling.

Sora always got manic when excited. It usually took someone like Riku to force him calm, but even then, he would continue jittering in silence until exhaustion drained it out of him. This time, it only took Roxas’ appearance in the doorway to make Sora freeze, even though Riku could tell by the sound of his gusting, rapid breath that his calm was temporary.  
  
It felt like an electric standoff as Roxas crossed both high top socked, dollar store sandaled feet and lounged against the doorframe with a thoughtless exhale. He was probably cocking his head to the side right now. An empty boba cup was balanced in his left hand. His right was in the pocket of his infuriatingly thin linen shorts. After unhooking one foot and hovering it forward, he froze, and the bed springs groaned.  
  
"What are you doing?" Sora sneered, and if Riku wasn’t mistaken, his voice sounded lewd. "You can’t come near me dressed like that."   
  
"Am I underdressed?" Roxas said in feigned bewilderment, to which Sora devilishly giggled, "overdressed."  
  
"Oh," Roxas worded. Then, he lowered his left hand to the ground, and Riku caught sight of his face as he bent. His expression was dangerous, cool, and obviously so trained on Sora he failed to register the silver goblin simmering under his bed. He let the boba cup rest on the carpet, but as he rose, his shirt rose with him until he discarded it over his head. For a moment, he let the breath hitch in Sora’s throat at the sight of his bare abdomen. Then, hooking his hands around the hem of his shorts, he let them fall and kicked off his sandals, buck naked save for socks. To Riku’s dismay, he was pretty well hung, as well as half hard.  
  
Sora’s breathy giggle made Riku hot and terrified at once. He had to get out of here, create a distraction, something, anything to stop what was happening before his horrified eyes. Brandishing himself naked in front of Sora would totally give Roxas an unfair advantage, but Riku didn’t see a way to stop Roxas in his tracks without- oh, motherfucker.  
  
Roxas’ entire, head-to-toe naked body was visible, his cross necklace bouncing across his collarbone as he crawled on all fours with back arched and shoulders rolling up like terra cotta boulders each time a muscular arm moved forward. The closer the blond got, the more rapid Sora’s breath got, until the boy moaned and the front of the bed groaned and sagged. Roxas’ face disappeared as he knelt against the bed, his hard dick less than a foot from Riku’s terrified face. Smacking sounds resounded above, and for a moment Riku was confused. Then, his heart fell.  
  
"Kiss my ass, lamebrain," Sora sneered into Roxas’ mouth, making Riku stifle a delirious giggle. Why was the brunet being so mean? Did he secretly hate Roxas? Oh my hearts, was this tryst non consensual and Sora was secretly crying out for help?  
  
There was little time to react before Roxas sprung on the bed and Sora screeched like a stuck rabbit. When Roxas growled, Sora let go a muffled giggle. Then, his voice freed into a whine, and the smacking sounds transformed to sucking as Sora gasped.  
  
Riku hugged himself under the bed, staring around for earplugs, an escape, a distraction, anything. All he had was the gay porn mag and the rubber band from Roxas’ sex tape.  
  
Above, Sora blustered something unintelligible and there was momentary quiet as the two whispered urgently back and forth. Then, Roxas said, "are you certain," and Sora laughed.  
  
"My dad would kill me," Roxas gusted.  
  
Again there was silence, this time absolute. Something began to move, because the bed creaked. Riku prayed that he had not been found out until the worst occurred.  
  
Sora let out a stifled cry as the mattress creaked forward and sagged near the top of the bed. Then, it began to shake, and Sora began to scream.  
  
"Roxas, hearts, yes, faster, oh!" Sora fumbled, letting guttural moans go between what must have been each thrust.  
  
Riku scittered blindly back and forth, horrified and out of touch as the rubber band and porn mag rolled under his grip. Staring down, he ripped out a page, balled it up, and used the rubber band to aim it at the edge of a vase on a table at the end of the stairwell hall. The first page missed. The second was a bullseye, making the vase twang and sway, as Roxas and Sora jolted to a stop above.  
  
"The fuck was that?" Sora gusted, attempting and failing to regain his breath.  
  
"I don’t know," Roxas replied, equally breathless. "Ghost? Riku hiding under the bed listening to us?"  
  
Riku bit his lip so hard it bled.  
  
"Ew," Sora giggled. "I don’t want to think of Riku at a time like this!"   
  
"But he loves you so much, Sora," Roxas mocked in a baby voice, receiving some kind of strike to the stomach judging by the oof he emitted next.  
  
"I hate when you joke about Riku," Sora mumbled. "He’s my friend."  
  
Roxas’ breath stopped. Then, in a gentle, softer voice from a time when he was not nearly as sure of himself as he was now, he uttered, "I know. I guess I’m just jealous. I really like you. You’re the nicest guy I’ve ever met."   
  
As Roxas’ voice broke, Sora cooed and the bedsprings groaned again as the two collapsed side by side. "I really like you, too, Rox. More than anyone. There’s no competition, especially Riku."  
  
There was more interminable silence. Then, the pounding started slow before commencing twice as hard and loud, and the front door slammed again as Cloud’s voice boomed up, "Roxas! Is Riku still here?"  
  
"Fuck, faster!" Sora squealed. "Make me come!"  
  
"Just a sec, dad," Roxas roared, and the bedsprings rumbling and quaking over Riku’s head almost drowned out the footsteps creaking up the stairs.  
  
"I had a great conversation with a friend on the way home," Cloud announced, before faltering to silence and regrouping, "Roxas, why is your door open?" In low urgency.  
  
"Fuck!" Roxas snarled, leaping from the bed with his hand cupped painfully between his legs, running for his door, and leaning out to gust, "just ten minutes, dad, please."   
  
"I hope you’re using protection!" Cloud thundered, but Roxas ignored him, locked his door, and crawled to his speaker system.  
  
"What song, Sora?" He asked, jolting in fright after hitting play right in the middle of Vanitas’ deranged baby song. Grimacing, he took the CD out and settled on the misplaced Moana soundtrack, holding it up with a grin.  
  
"Yes," Sora groaned luxuriously from the bed. "You know the one."  
  
Roxas chuckled and winked, adding, "you are so crazy," as he pressed play on _How Far We’ll Go_ and cranked it up as far as the volume would go.  
  
_Aue aue!_ Moana’s tribesmen rumbled as Sora and Roxas returned to their lovemaking fest with gusto. The combination of bass heavy Broadway vocals, bed creaking, and moaning shook the entire room and lifted a fine cloud of dust high into the air. It took everything in Riku not to break into a sneezing or coughing fit. He had to take turns covering his ears and nose, which was now streaming snot.  
  
Three meaningful thrusts and muffled cries later, Roxas and Sora groaned against each other and collapsed, laughing between each breath before the smack of kissing returned. Five minutes later, Cloud knocked on the door.  
  
"Roxas," he warned. "Riku’s bicycle is still on my lawn."  
  
"Fuck off, dad," Roxas blustered under his breath, rolling off the bed, and looking for stray cloth to wipe himself off with. When Cloud knocked again, Roxas called, "I can assure you that Riku is gone, dad, otherwise he would have pounced on us ages ago."   
  
"I’m going to get Vanitas to text him," Cloud snapped outside, disappearing down the stairs again. When the coast was clear, Sora bounded from the room and down the hall with two fingers plugged over his ass and the other over his dick, legs glistening with sweat and...  
  
_Kingdom Hearts_ , Riku thought in desolation.  
  
Before long, Sora was in the bathroom throwing a towel down the hall for Roxas to catch. Roxas circled it around his waist and wiped a hand down the inside, but before he could sneak to the bathroom, too, his father caught him at his open door.  
  
"Did you use protection?" Cloud demanded. When Roxas rolled his eyes and sloped his shoulders, the man grabbed him by the arms and shook him. "Look at me, for heart’s sakes, Roxas!"  
  
"Dad, relax, we got tested two weeks ago!"  
  
"I don’t give a flying fuck how many tests you took, while you're under my roof, you use protection!"  
  
"I’m sorry, dad, I ran out and we didn’t have much time."  
  
"I was at the grocery store, you could have waited ten more minutes."  
  
"Ew, I don’t want my dad buying me condoms."  
  
"Roxas, you’re a man, now. Act like one and take responsibility."  
  
Suddenly, there was a vibration from above Roxas’ speaker system, and Cloud, Roxas, and Riku swiveled towards it, perplexed. There, sitting on top of the CD drive where Riku had left it last, was his phone.  
  
"Damn," Cloud whispered, strolling into the room and picking it up. After pausing to look at Riku’s Lock Screen with a forlorn sigh, he turned a full circle and straightened when he noticed the overturned plate and track marks in the carpet. The man followed the entirety of Riku’s trip from the CD player and TV to the closet, pausing in the center of the floor in confusion before stepping towards the bed.  
  
"What, dad?" Roxas asked. Then, abruptly, he hurried to the closet and rifled through his keepsakes box, freezing with a scowl that Riku could not see. "Dad? Did you let Riku into my room?"   
  
"Yeah," Cloud retorted. "He wanted to listen to your music."  
  
"Fuck, dad, did you spend time in the army or the funny farm?"  
  
"Roxas Strife, watch your tone."  
  
"He went through my personal stuff, dad! My camcorder is in the wrong place and the tapes are all... holy living shit."  
  
"What? What! "  
  
There was a click and whirring sound, then muffled moans and Axel’s congested voice before the recording stopped and Roxas threw down what must have been the camcorder and snarled, "pervert!"  
  
"What, Roxas?"  
  
"He was watching my sex tape!"  
  
"Your what?" Cloud thundered.  
  
At first, Roxas blubbered. Then, rubbing his knees in preparation, he explained, "when I was fifteen, Axel and I made a sex tape."  
  
"You had sex with that guy?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"He was nineteen!"  
  
"I know, dad."  
  
"You told me he was teaching you how to board!" Cloud wailed in horror, regrouping with a vicious rumble, "I am going straight to Radiant Garden and I am going to castrate that punk!"  
  
"Dad, please!"  
  
"I don’t give a fuck, Roxas, that ginger scalped piece of shit called me dad and I never fucking said he could, and then behind my back..."   
  
"Dad, stay out of my personal life! Besides, that was years ago!"  
  
"You don’t still talk to him, do you?"  
  
There was a pause. Then: "Can we concentrate on the psycho at hand, dad? Riku played you like a fiddle."   
  
"I think Riku is a good kid, Rox."  
  
"He rifled through my private stuff! He’s trying to get dirt on me because he’s in love with Sora! I bet he used Unversed Hearse to get you out of the house, didn’t he?"  
  
"He wanted to get to know you through your music-"  
  
"You are so senile, dad!"  
  
"Um, Roxas?" Sora squeaked from the open bathroom door, faltering on Cloud before looking down in shame.  
  
"Sora, it’s okay," Cloud reassured. "You’re welcome to my house anytime, just please be responsible. I can’t have you on my conscience."   
  
"Sorry, sir," Sora grinned bashfully. "I’ll be more careful, I swear. Can Roxas shower with me?"   
  
"Sora!" Roxas gasped, ravaged by a full body blush to complement Cloud’s sudden pallor.  
  
"I-" the older man croaked, before groaning in defeat, "just clean up the bathroom after you’re through."  
  
"Yes, sir!" Sora squeaked, beaming like a sun bolt before shutting the door and turning on the water.  
  
Quiet descended as Roxas and Cloud shared the hall in thought. Then Cloud conceded, "all I want is honesty."   
  
"I know, dad."  
  
"Not lies by omission. Riku deserves that, too."  
  
"That’s up to Sora, dad. If it was me, I’d tell him right now."  
  
"Is he gay?"  
  
"Riku? I’d say that’s pretty obvious."   
  
"Vanitas said they’re not on good terms. Were they hooking up, or something?"   
  
"Wow, dad."  
  
"What? I’m confused on how the two of them relate."   
  
"Riku despises Vanitas, dad."  
  
"But the concert..."  
  
"Trust me, dad. The only person Riku has ever gotten along with is Sora. He’s even told his community college classmates that they’re an item."  
  
"Well, tonight’s the night to nip that in the bud. We’re having dinner at his house."   
  
Before Roxas could ask for specifics, Sora barked for him to join him.  
  
"Be ready in an hour," Cloud called as he lumbered down the staircase. "I’ll call Sora’s mom." Then, the men parted ways, the stairwell quieted, and Riku was finally alone.  
  
Crawling out from under the bed like an orc from Mordor, Riku whipped back and forth with bloodshot eyes. Then, he lunged on all fours for the bedroom door, stopping just short of the stairs as Cloud thumped back up whistling.  
  
"Shit!" Riku blustered to himself, heart thundering and vision blurring as he tore back and forth for an escape route. At least the breeze from the window was quelling his nausea. Wait a minute.  
  
The window!  
  
Riku whipped around and peeked across the lawn to Sora’s bedroom window, wondering if he could summon the gall to leap across like Sora had done for Roxas two weeks ago. When Cloud began talking on the phone right outside the bedroom door, Riku realized he had little choice.  
  
Hopping back and charging forward, he dove through Roxas’ window towards Sora’s bedroom, grinning in terror as he reached out to grab the windowsill. Before he could do that, though, he crashed face first into Sora’s window screen and tumbled over the edge of the gutter.  
  
"Fuck!" He swore as blood streamed from his nose, wincing every time the now smashed screen creaked in the wind. Grabbing the bottom with one hand, he attempted using it to wrench himself up, only succeeding in completely ripping off the screen and letting it fall to the grass below as he held onto the shingles for dear life. All the while, Vanitas’ music thrummed through the house.  
  
"Hey, Seph, did Riku get home yet?" Cloud asked above, calling over his shoulder, "Roxas, does Sora want Vanitas to come along?"   
  
"Shit, shit, shit," Riku groaned, wincing as the shingles loosened from their nails. Positioning himself above the softest patch of grass he could find, he stretched his body to its full capacity, shut his eyes, and prayed. Then he let go, and landed feet first in front of Vanitas’ open studio window.  
  
Scrambling to standing, he canvased the perimeter for his bike, finding it in his original spot near Cloud’s petunias. Before he could sprint for them, the front door opened, and Cloud was laughing and talking on the phone on the porch.

Riku froze in horror as the man stared down the road in the opposite direction. Then, having nowhere else to go, he leapt through Vanitas’ studio window and rolled under his futon just as the ravenet swaggered in. Two minutes later, Cloud leaned right over where Riku had jumped and said hello.  
  
"Hi, Cloud," Vanitas responded in surprise. "What brings you over?"  
  
"Is Riku around?" Cloud inquired, making Riku clutch his heart and bite back tears.  
  
"I thought he was in your place."   
  
"He was, but he left his phone and bike and I can’t see any sign of him. His parents can’t find him, either."   
  
"Bummer. He’s not with me."  
  
"Okay. Well, do you want to come with us to dinner at his place?"   
  
"You’re going to dinner at Riku’s... without Riku?"

There was a slight pause in which Cloud no doubt realized the absurdity of what he was asking. "I’ll make a couple calls around the neighborhood to see if anyone spotted him," he conceded. "Otherwise, I’ll consider calling the police in a couple hours. That too late, you think?"  
  
"He’s had episodes before. He’d disappear overnight and be back by morning like it was nothing."   
  
" _Riku_ did?"  
  
"Yeah. You’d be surprised, the stories Sora’s told me about Riku."  
  
"When did that last happen?"  
  
"Fifteen or sixteen years old, I think. Right before his dad left."   
  
"Kingdom Hearts. Well... I’ll leave it up to the family. Want to be there?"  
  
"As much as I’d love to, I’ve got a music job due tomorrow morning."  
  
"Don’t work too hard, kiddo."  
  
"Never do," Vanitas drawled, already perched in front of his computer with headphones hovering over his ears.  
  
After a quick goodbye, Cloud returned next door and herded Sora and Roxas around until they were ready with baked goods to bring along. Riku heard the feint laughter of their progression from shower to bedroom to kitchen and onwards, imagining Sora borrowing one of Roxas’ outfits for dinner. They horsed around on the porch as Cloud pulled his sedan from the driveway. Then Roxas parked in his place, rejoined Sora and Cloud, and their voices receded as the sedan pulled out of the driveway. After, the world became blessedly silent save for Vanitas’ humming and clicking.  
  
At first Riku brainstormed ways of escape, as well as what he would say to his mother when he got home late. After it became apparent that Vanitas would not be leaving the studio for quite some time, though, he rolled on his back, spread out, and stared at the futon frame above, running over every single thing he had witnessed or heard that day in a vicious, agonizing circle until the shadows rising from the setting sun engulfed the room. Ahead, Vanitas scooted from the computer screen with a groan towards his open guitar case and propped the instrument up before stomping to the window, slamming it shut, and plopping on the futon above Riku’s head. Outside, a car chugged up and stopped. Then the front door opened and closed, and soon enough Sora’s mother was leaning inside the studio saying hello. The moment the woman’s feet tiptoed in the door, the futon groaned and Vanitas’ feet met the carpet in front of Riku’s head.  
  
"Hey, Celes," he greeted in a voice too tired to be hesitant, as he usually was around Sora’s mom.  
  
"You didn’t go to dinner with Sora and his friend?" She asked.  
  
Vanitas kept silent, but the way Sora’s mother chuckled, Riku assumed he had responded with a shrug. Her feet lumbered forward and she sat at his side. Then, her feet touched his as she hugged him, before pulling away and swiveling towards his computer screen.  
  
"Working on a new song?" She asked.  
  
"Trying," Vanitas sighed. "I’ll be quiet."   
  
"You’re going to work through the night again?" She whispered.  
  
"No choice. I’ve procrastinated long enough."  
  
"You’re such a hard worker, Van," she whispered, embracing him again. There was a small smacking sound. She must have kissed him on the cheek or forehead, because he whispered thanks and she chuckled, "no problem, honey. Did Riku come by?"  
  
"No."  
  
"That boy is wild. I never know what’s going on in his head."   
  
"You probably have the right idea."  
  
Sora’s mother harrumphed and strolled back to the door, catching the frame and cocking her head to the side before turning abruptly to say, "is Sora..." but words failed her as her hand relinquished behind her back.  
  
"Is he what?"   
  
"Nothing, sweetie. You know you’re welcome in my house whenever you like. You should stick around more often."  
  
"I don’t want to impose."   
  
Hesitation. Then, boldly: "you’re my son just as much as Sora. You wouldn’t be imposing at all." With that, she rushed from the room and left Vanitas to himself.  
  
The silence returned like a rest in between musical notes. Such frenetic cacophonies marked by legato absences had come to characterize Riku’s life in more ways than one. He listened through this one without thinking or acting, and he felt nothing but curiosity and exhaustion as Vanitas pulled out his phone and put the voicemail on speaker.  
  
_Hey, Van_ , a chipper, familiar voice rang out. _I found some old stuff of yours at my dad’s and wondered if you wanted any of it. I’ll take pictures and send them to you, otherwise if you have time to drop by we can meet for coffee and sort through it together. There’s a new spot beside our old ice cream haunt that’s out of this world_.  
  
"Out of this world," Vanitas derided savagely, adding an acrid giggle on the end before sniggering and muttering curses under his breath. Just as he made a point of clicking off the voicemail and deleting it, his computer lit up and sang with an incoming call.  
  
"No," Vanitas groaned, tapping his head on the desk. Then, hissing another string of curses, he grabbed his guitar, set it before him like a shield, and turned on the video. If Riku scooted dangerously close to the futon edge, he could spot the bottom half of a tan, well formed face that looked disturbingly like Roxas’ right in the screen's center.  
  
_Van!_ the man extolled, leaning forward and adjusting something before continuing, _you’ve been avoiding me._  
  
"Working," Vanitas corrected, twanging his guitar for emphasis.  
  
His caller’s smile downgraded to a partial smirk. _Still in that band of yours?_ It sounded more like an insult than a question.  
  
Vanitas’ hand gritted over the strings before relaxing and playing again. "Depends on what band you’re thinking of. I started a new one a couple months back."  
  
_Have you started touring yet?_ Another insult made innocent by a light giggle.  
  
More heavy guitar strumming. Then Vanitas leered, "no, because we’re still settling on the perfect people, Ven."  
  
_I thought you were getting your degree._  
  
"Online associate’s."  
  
_Through what? Twilight Town Community College?_  
  
Riku cringed at the thought of Vanitas attending the same school as him, even virtually.  
  
"Radiant Garden. Finished last year."  
  
_And you still haven’t rounded it out?_  
  
"I make good money now."  
  
_How long can you keep that up?_ When Vanitas failed to respond, the man continued, I didn’t call to open old wounds. It just drives me crazy, cause I care about you and I know you’re a freaking genius, you just don’t... There was no response to that, either, so the caller rattled on, _any new life developments?_  
  
That drew a snicker. Vanitas mustered enough energy to explain, "little bro has his first boyfriend."   
  
_No way! Who?_  
  
"Your brother."  
  
_The one you corrupted with your music?_  
  
"His music is vastly different to mine, Ven."  
  
_You say that like it’s a bad thing._  
  
"His voice could be the next Justin Bieber but his band is absolute dog shit. I’m being polite when I say that. The girl’s cute but that lanky guy..."  
  
_Axel_ , the caller growled, and Riku had to agree with the sentiment. _Rox likes to act tough, but old strings don’t snap for him._  
  
"Ooh, look at you, mister poet."  
  
_That’s free lyric material I just handed out. I expect credit when the single drops._ After Vanitas laughed, the caller continued, _Actually, Cloud called me half an hour ago to ask if I knew about their relationship. You know I caught them by the skate park one day after lacrosse practice?_  
  
"No way!"  
  
_I was scarred for life. Every time I’d see a red head on the field I’d get flagged for striking them too hard._  
  
"That reminds me..."  
  
_Oh, hearts._  
  
"No, it’s nothing bad. At least, for you."  
  
_Go on, you know I love gossip._ Who was this mysterious man and why was he Riku’s intellectual doppelgänger?

Vanitas made a show of hesitating before the caller goaded him with a giggling cheer and Riku scooted his ear as close to the futon edge as he could manage. "Remember Riku?"  
  
The eager grin tugging apart Riku’s sweaty, dirt and tear stained cheeks receded. All of a sudden, he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear whatever gossip Vanitas had to offer.  
  
_No._  
  
"You’d know him if you saw a picture. He was constantly with Sora. He was the weird kid who could never be naked. He’d wear a full body suit and pool shoes to the beach."  
  
A pang went through Riku’s heart and a grimace slashed his face. Bad memories of being mocked as a child for his modesty returned full force. Children were honest about his weirdness, but adults would coo that nothing was wrong with him while looking on with gazes of smug pity.  
  
_Oh my gosh. Was he the kid at that one birthday who you put a bug down his back and he had a full blown panic attack?_  
  
"Yes! Holy shit, I forgot that!"  
  
Riku had forgotten, too, but boy, were the memories hurtling back like a train without breaks.  
  
_Sorry if this is touchy, but... remember when I broke up with you?_  
  
"You did? Wow, all this time I thought we were still a thing."  
  
_Very funny. Well, the same day, Sora and him were horsing around and rolling in the grass, and Sora ended up in his lap and I said ‘ah, young love,’ or something and you bolted to cry._  
  
"Fantastic," Vanitas dripped with sarcasm. "Such good memories."  
  
_Well, while you were gone, Sora screamed, ‘stop poking my butt!’ and then Sora realized he was still holding both Riku’s hands and he said, ‘where’s your other finger’ because he was so confused..._  
  
"Where’s your other finger?" Vanitas thundered, throwing his head back and roaring laughter as the caller cackled.  
  
_It must have been the kid’s first one, because he just stood up, full tent, and pointed it straight towards me in horror._  
  
As Vanitas’ laughter shook the ceiling, a forgotten memory illuminated to Riku exactly who the caller was. A blond, tan, spiky haired teen with kind blue eyes who had whispered, _you should go to the bathroom_ , knocking Riku out of a terror induced trance that would otherwise have left him prey to the laughter of everyone else present at Sora’s eleventh birthday party and, consequently, Riku’s first erection. Riku had been smitten for a full month, even doodling pictures of the stranger's kind, beautiful face during classes while hoping he would return to cart him off to Fairy Land. Nice to know that even the most understanding individual from his childhood had secretly been mocking him behind his back.   
  
_So, is he still embarrassing himself? What did he do, now?_  
  
"First of all, he’s loved Sora all his life, right?"  
  
_But Sora’s with Roxas._  
  
"Roxas moved here two weeks ago and Sora was smitten within a day."   
  
_Uh huh._  
  
"So Roxas invited Sora and Riku to his concert and Riku started panicking because I think he’d planned to ask Sora out that evening but Sora wasn’t telling him the venue. I found out for him and took him along."  
  
_Aw, that’s sweet._  
  
"I wanted to give him a fair chance. In reward, he’s a total bitch the whole ride over, reveals that he’s always despised me-"  
  
_Yikes._

"But I take him to Tifa’s bar to get venue info and loosen him up. Then he says he hasn’t eaten so I get him burritos. Along the way I spew my guts up."  
  
_Oh, hearts, I know where this is going..._  
  
"So I soldier on, we get to Roxas’ band trailer, and everyone’s naked including Sora, Riku’s horrified, Axel’s trying to flirt with him, and he starts turning green."  
  
_Holy fuck._  
  
"I kid you not, the second the band left, Riku projectile vomited all over the trailer steps, ran around the back, and shit all over the trailer tongue and Jack stand."   
  
_Oh my hearts_.  
  
"He sobbed the entire way home. I felt awful. He hasn’t gotten in touch since."  
  
_Is Sora upset?_  
  
"A little, but Sora’s never had a big enough attention span to concentrate on two people at once. Right now Roxas is far too interesting."   
  
_I get that. When you and I started having sex my entire world disappeared._  
  
Vanitas’ back seized at the sound of Ven’s confession before straightening to detract, "but, anyway, I told him to give Riku a call to see if he got home okay and apparently Riku screamed at him and said he didn’t want to talk again. So Sora came crying to me saying that there was too much pressure and I told him to choose one and stop worrying about the other and he chose Rox."   
  
_Why’d you make him choose?_  
  
"I want him to have a chance at falling in love without some ‘nice guy’ dragging him down. Riku’s got serious issues and Sora’s too innocent to handle them."  
  
_Like what?_  
  
"When he was fifteen he went off the rails. It caused Sora and this girl Kairi some health problems and apparently he got violent a few times."  
  
_Hearts, should I be worried about Rox?_  
  
"I don’t think so. Riku’s evened out for the most part. His family invited me to dinner tonight. Maybe I should go to get dirt on him-"  
  
"Sweetie," Sora’s mom chirped, poking in with shaved, oiled legs and high heels. "I’m heading to Riku’s, sure you don’t want to come?"  
  
"I’m sure, mom, I- I mean-"  
  
A chuckle wisped from Celes’ nose, Riku guessed because she was smiling too hard. "That’s fine, Van," she soothed. "See you later," and then shut the door.  
  
_Was that Celes?_ Ven whispered once her car had gone.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
_Aw. I’m glad you two are getting along._  
  
"Still feels like a betrayal of my own."

A nasty, infested pause passed between the two of them, filled with painful memories. 

_You should come by Departure,_ Ven responded after ample consideration, voice a balm. _Get that coffee I was mentioning._  
  
"I’ll see."   
  
_It could be a double date. Rox and Sora, you and I._  
  
"Weren’t you with Ephemer?"  
  
_I was._

Another pause. Far less painful, but equally as fraught. Then Vanitas blubbered, "I'll call you back."  
  
_Do. I miss your laugh._  
  
Vanitas ended the call before Ven could say goodbye. Then, after another loaded silence, he tore from the computer, paced with guitar in hand, plopped on the futon, and strummed a violent, formless melody.  
  
_I don’t want to talk to you_ , he started singing, beating out the rhythm on his guitar body. _I don’t want to stay in touch. I don’t want to hear your side, honestly I’ve had enough._  
  
Grunting in satisfaction, he straightened, scratched his back with his guitar pick, and improvised another line, mumbling, " _say you say you say that you want me again, but you weren’t there when I needed a friend. End it, I got to end it, but will I find the courage when the time_... fuck. Whatever."   
  
Though his cursing droned annoyance, his body language said otherwise as he hopped back to the computer and clacked away at the keyboard, scribbling in a notebook and throwing on his headphones. Within thirty minutes, he’d fashioned a base melody and lyrics for a full three minute song. After checking all the doors and window, closing the curtains, and rearranging a few foam pads on the walls, he started recording. Then, after more keyboard clacking, he flipped on his phone, plopped on the futon a final time, and announced after the dial tone, "I’ve got your song!"   
  
_Just in time_ , retorted Larxene’s voice. _Skuld will be thrilled. By the way, you look like shit._  
  
"Been up twenty six hours straight."  
  
_Hearts, Van, learn to pace yourself. Not that I’d take my own advice._  
  
"I’ll take a nap after I finish talking to you."  
  
_Oh, it’s a breakup song! This is fire!_  
  
"It could go one of several ways. I sent a few extra melodies if the first is too mid 2000s Avril Lavigne."  
  
_Her producers will make that call. You’ve done a great job, babe. By the way, how’s Riku?_  
  
"We haven’t spoken."  
  
_Poor kid. Between you and me, it was a pleasure making the Sea Salt Trio do the cleanup. Roxas has been a pretentious bitch lately and it was a nice moment to put him in his place._  
  
"Be nice, Larxene."  
  
_I would never! Anyway, you ever need a favor, give me a call._  
  
"Noted."  
  
After ending the call, Vanitas groaned and slumped back, whistling the alternate melodies for the song he had just given away. Within seconds, his whistling turned to a snore and his hand slipped over the futon side. Riku waited till the hand was completely still. Then, crawling from under the futon belly first, he scrambled up and looked down.  
  
Vanitas curled up like a baby, every bodily fiber loose as he slept. Deep rings drilled under his heavy lashed eyes roaming with dreams. When he shivered, Riku froze, set his eyes on a stray pair of pants on the floor, and threw them over Vanitas’ back. When the ravenet stilled again, Riku tiptoed to the window, opened it with a grimace, and crawled out.  
  
Cloud had left his bike propped against the side of the house. Grabbing it, Riku kicked off and took the long way home, circling down the bike trail behind Sora’s house and shivering as the street lights gave way to close canopied trees dotted by strips of moon. It was so dark Riku could barely see ten feet in front of him, but he knew this way so well his legs did the finding for him. Soon, he was turning onto his own street and pedaling up the hill. When a familiar sedan beeped at him on the way up and a trio of voices rang out his name, he ignored them and pushed as fast as he could, pulling up to his mother’s driveway and faltering at the sight of the sleek black Porsche in the front drive. He let his bike down just as the door opened, and before he could turn, his mother was embracing him and clutching his face with tears streaming down her cheeks.  
  
"Where were you, Riku?" She buffeted. "I’ve been worried sick, calling you for the past ten hours!"  
  
Riku tried responding, but the sight of the shadow looming behind his mother in the doorway made his breath die and his blood run cold. "Dad," he gulped, digging into the skin of his mother’s arms without realizing it.  
  
"Son," Sephiroth responded, face shrouded by the welcoming orange light overhead.


End file.
